


Dragonfire and Blood

by cjr2



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dragonriders, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Marriage, POV Multiple, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Episode: s07e07 The Dragon and the Wolf, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, R plus L equals J, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr2/pseuds/cjr2
Summary: Every choice was a decision between the lesser of two bad outcomes; everything was a balance between honor, loyalty, and the lives of those they cared about.Post Season 7, Jon finds out the truth. And everyone figures out how to deal with it, together.





	1. BRAN

**Author's Note:**

> There is nothing original about this story. This story is 100% cliches and fanservice, intermixed with a small (or not so small) bit of wish-fulfillment for the author. Maybe you'll like it anyway, and it will help tide you over during the arduous wait until 2019.
> 
> This is post season 7 based primarily on the show canon, with a little bit borrowed from the books via what I was able to read off of a wiki in five minutes' time. Also, I'm a filthy casual who has only seen the majority of the series once, and on top of that, I fast-forward through scenes with characters I find boring. So there are probably inconsistencies and mistakes here. Maybe lots of them. Hopefully not enough to ruin the story for any of you.
> 
> **EDITED TO ADD** : Based on the feedback I've gotten from some readers, I'm adding an extra note here that will hopefully keep some of you who will hate the story from wasting your time on reading. This story does not treat aunt/nephew incest as normal/accepted by everyone, and there are various characters in the story who are disturbed/disgusted/uncertain how to react regarding the (canonical) aunt/nephew relationship. Historical examples of [(historical) Sansa Stark](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Sansa_Stark_\(daughter_of_Rickon\)) and [Serena Stark](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Serena_Stark) (two past Stark family examples of half-uncle/niece marriages) are never mentioned nor taken into account in the story and I don't view them as analogous because as half-uncles and nieces, they have a much smaller degree of relatedness than the canonical aunt/nephew pairing herein. They are not mentioned/taken into account because this is based on the show canon more than the books/related source material, and because my assumption is that characters won't necessarily have memorized family trees in order to be immediately be able to recall this information. Jon is also a stupid and mopey bastard about his lineage and its repercussions for quite a few chapters before he ever manages to get his head out of his butthole. If the above-mentioned points are something that will bother you to read, I'd encourage you to exit this window now and save yourself the aggravation. If you read anyway, or are skipping this note and thus not reading anything I'm writing right now, you've decided to proceed at your own risk.

Bran sat silently in his wheeled chair, staring out over the scenery before him—the North, the territory of the Starks, the land surrounding Winterfell. A heavy blanket of white covered the landscape, though there had been a brief respite in the snowfall, a few days for the snow to pack into the ground. The covering of snow at the gates was dark with dirt and mud, cart and horse tracks delineating the path up to the entrance.

Bran’s eyes traced over the scene before him, one that he’d seen a handful of times already. Two enormous dragons on the hill, seeming to stand guard over his childhood home.

It had been a fortnight since Jon had returned to Winterfell with Daenerys Targaryen at his side. In the first few days, the pale-haired queen had kept her dragons away, and with good reason. Bran had been present when she’d explained, although it had been obvious enough. The men of the North were already wary to accept her into their territory—a foreign queen, an invader—that fact exacerbated even further when Jon had explained to them that he’d pledged his fealty to her, accepted her as his Queen. Any move that looked as though he was trying to intimidate the men of the North would have been received poorly.

But after the initial days, when tempers had calmed down, when it had been clear that no one would be killed imminently, the dragons had come closer, slowly. The first day, they’d simply been visible, flying around in the distance—careful to stay far enough away that they couldn’t have been seen to be threatening Winterfell. Rather, it appeared almost as though they were patrolling, protecting.

And the people of Winterfell got used to the sight of them after a few more days, and that was when they’d landed near the castle. Far enough away that they could be seen, clearly—but not so close that they appeared to be encroaching.

And Jon and Daenerys had gone to greet them, together—an utterly transparent show of unity. And many had watched, awestruck, as the Dragon Queen walked up and ran her hand along the snout of the larger one, Drogon. The one she rode, the one named for her late Dothraki husband. Preparation for the winter that had already arrived had stopped for a time as everyone came to watch the show, perhaps unable to recognize it for the blatant manipulation it was, as Daenerys stroked and laid her head against that of her dragon. The unmistakable display of the tameness of these dragons; the signal that these were her pets—her children as she called them—and not some wild beasts who would rampage and kill them all.

Just that would never have been enough to sway the men of the North, though. No, the show had been orchestrated for more than that, and everyone had watched as Jon had removed his glove and then, much more slowly than his companion Queen had, run his hand along the snout of the second one, Rhaegal. They’d watched as the dragon had not only tolerated his touch but sunk into it, as he’d laid on the ground and closed his eyes, much in the way Ghost did when being pet. The message was clear: not only were the dragons tame, but the they allowed Jon’s touch. They were not a threat to the North if the North was not a threat to them.

It was Daenerys’ doing, obviously. Bran had heard nothing of the decision, but that was clear enough, too; Jon had no mind for that kind of politics or diplomacy. His style of diplomacy, for better or for worse, was complete and total honesty. Bran had seen that in King’s Landing, had seen Jon stalwartly refuse to go back on a pledge. A lesson he’d learned once and again from Bran’s father, Jon’s uncle—a lesson built ironically on a web of lies.

They’d repeated the show a few more times over the ensuing days, and Bran sat there and watched them do it again, watched Jon speak softly to the dragon named for his father. The irony of that rose up bitter in Bran’s throat, but he ignored it; Jon would know soon enough. Jon lips moved as he spoke softly—to the woman or the dragon, Bran wasn’t certain. He wondered if the dragon cared that Jon didn’t speak the Valyrian tongue.

“This isn’t the way to do it.”

Bran looked over to see Samwell Tarly standing beside him. He’d almost forgotten that they’d been mid-conversation; the sight of Jon and Daenerys with the dragons almost too compelling. But they _had_ been talking, Bran recalled. Not just talking but arguing mildly.

“It’s the _only_ way,” Bran intoned, the sound seeming bizarre and forced past his lips. His voice had started sounding alien to his ears long ago; he’d already forgotten what it was like to feel at home in his own body. “The truth must be known by all.”

Sam looked at him desperately.

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be!” he hissed in a loud whisper, as though trying to ensure that no one around them would overhear their conversation. “Maybe Jon doesn’t even _want_ —”

“It doesn’t matter what Jon wants. It needs to be known,” Bran said slowly, not even waiting for the end of Sam’s argument. He already knew what Sam wanted to say—not because he was the Three-Eyed Raven, but because Sam had said it all before, and he’d already dismissed it all.

But Sam tried again.

“You told me _first_ , before you told any of your siblings, before Jon got here,” Sam protested, a hint of certainty in his voice. “There must be a reason for that. You became the Three-Eyed Raven—fine. But it’s like when that happened, you forgot how to be _human_. You forgot that not everyone is ready to hear what you’re ready to tell them.”

Bran stopped and looked at Sam as if seeing him for the first time. They’d had this same conversation innumerable times, but nothing Sam had said had swayed Bran’s conviction that everyone needed to know the truth as soon as possible. Especially the Dragon Queen—especially after what he’d seen on their journey to Winterfell. Sam was intelligent, but there was a naïveté, a willingness to believe in the goodness of people that remained strong within the man despite all he had seen and done—and that fact was as surprising as it was somehow reassuring.

“Kings need advisors, and you may not be a king, but in some ways, you have as much power as one,” Sam said finally, cautiously. “Kings need advisors because they have so much power, they sometimes can’t imagine what it’s like to not be king. I know you didn’t name me your advisor, but this is my advice—tell Jon _first_ , before anyone else finds out. Or if you can’t tell just him, tell the Starks first. Let them come to terms with it, before the rest of the world finds out.”

Bran turned his head and stared out over the expanse of snow-covered land to eye the two again. Jon and Daenerys stood near each other—too near, and Bran knew regrettably what that meant. He’d seen it, seen their coupling, knowing the truth was coming too late to stop that. Wondered if that was the way it was meant to be, like him falling from the tower so he could become the Three-Eyed Raven. He didn’t hold a grudge against Jaime Lannister for that, not after he recognized that it was necessary. Jon and Daenerys meeting, forming an attachment before Bran could get to them with the truth…that had to be necessary, too, although Bran couldn’t yet see why.

“All right,” Bran acquiesced finally, releasing a slow exhale.

 

* * *

  

The hall was dark and emptier than the last time they’d been there. Petyr Baelish’s blood had already been scrubbed from the stones, but Bran remembered watching him fall, remembered the satisfaction he’d felt parroting Littlefinger’s own words back at him. It was one of the few moments he’d felt, ironically, like Bran Stark once more. Ned Stark had still been his father, and Littlefinger had started the war that had claimed Ned’s life—and the lives of so much of his family. The feeling of satisfaction at finally getting some vengeance had finally made Bran feel _alive_ , if only briefly.

The door opened, and Arya stepped through. So similar to the last time he’d been in the hall, though Sansa didn’t sit at his side that time, and the walls weren’t lined with observers. Sansa filed in next, tall and black-clad and regal as ever. Then came Jon, shorter than Sansa now but no less commanding in his heavy furs. And finally Sam, pulling the door shut behind them with a resounding thud.

Jon was the first to speak.

“Why are we here, Bran?”

There was a note of suspicion in his voice, and Bran wasn’t surprised by it. If anything, Jon had had the most trouble trying to acclimate to who Bran had become, despite everything he’d seen beyond the Wall. He’d listened to Bran with a healthy dose of skepticism at first, until Bran had detailed to him the proceedings of their meeting at the Dragon Pit. Until he’d told them, a day ahead of the arrival of a raven from Tormund and Beric, that the Night King had arrived at Eastwatch and the Wall had fallen.

And Jon was like Sam—which was perhaps what had, at last, convinced Bran to change his tactics about revealing the the whole story to everyone, to instead tell Jon and his siblings first. Jon was like Sam in that he didn’t approve of Bran’s approach, didn’t believe that unfiltered truth was always the right tactic. Bran knew that he’d hurt Sansa when he’d first spoken to her in the godswood after coming back, although he couldn’t quite understand why. Jon did, though, and Jon disapproved.

Then again, Bran had also been the one to break the news to them that Cersei had betrayed them, so perhaps Jon was wary for another reason, expecting more bad news. Bran gave him a look, one that he hoped was reassuring, but he wasn’t sure what that looked like anymore.

“I’d like to tell you a story,” Bran murmured dully and without pretense, “about our Aunt Lyanna.”

Sam gave him a look, one that Bran saw out of the corner of his eye, but Bran ignored it. Sam had argued that he should be the one to break the news—that he had more tact—but Bran had discounted that entirely. Bran was the one who saw things, and his family all knew that. The truth would have more weight coming directly from his mouth.

Sansa’s face twisted at that, and she glanced over at the door, as if expecting Daenerys to burst through it at any moment.

“You mean our aunt who was kidnapped and raped by _her_ brother?”

Sansa didn’t specify who she was talking about, but they all knew. She’d been the most dismayed when she’d heard that Jon had sworn fealty to the Dragon Queen. Even Bran, for as little as he understood human interaction anymore, could easily see why; what she believed had been done to their aunt felt terribly personal to her, another Stark woman held captive and raped by a member of a family with all the political leverage.

“No,” Bran deadpanned, before Jon could open his mouth to defend Daenerys again. He’d heard it already, too many times—directed to Sansa and to the Northern Lords both, the defense of Daenerys. Sansa, who had also turned to Jon expecting the defense, turned back to Bran with an angry look.

“No?” she inquired, her expression icy. Her tone was calm, but it belied the building fury beneath it, her body vibrating almost visibly with the effort it took to hold it in. “What do you _mean_ no?”

Bran continued to look at her, his face impassive. Sam was glancing between all of them, his expression wary, as Bran spoke again.

“She wasn’t kidnapped. She wasn’t raped.”

The air in the room was tense; Bran could feel it as easily as anyone else.

“Of course she was,” Sansa fumed, with the desperate certainty of someone who had been hearing the tale all her life. And someone who had had it proven to her time and time again since then that men in positions of power believed they could take what they wanted. “That’s what Robert’s Rebellion was all about, or have you forgotten?”

Bran was unfazed.

“Yes, it was, but it was a lie,” he intoned with the certainty of someone who had _seen_ it, who had seen the desperate affection in Lyanna’s eyes as she’d married her beloved. “They were in love. They were married.”

There was silence in the room as everyone exchanged a look. The first one to speak was Jon—Jon, who had learned the histories alongside Robb as they’d grown up, who had been old enough before the war started to have learned and remembered.

“They couldn’t be married,” he said with a frown. “Rhaegar Targaryen was already married. To Elia Martell. They had two children.”

Bran tilted his head as he thought about them again at Jon’s words. Jon’s half-brother and half-sister. Daenerys’ niece and nephew, both dead at the behest of a Lannister, like so many others in their lives. Bran’s train of thought was interrupted as Sam cleared his throat from the corner of the room, and everyone abruptly turned to look at him. All but Bran seemed to have forgotten he was there at all.

Sam looked sheepish as four pairs of eyes fell on him. “That marriage was annulled by High Septon Maynard,” he said finally, his tone careful. “He wrote about it in his private diary. I transcribed it while I was at the Citadel. He annulled their marriage and married Rhaegar to someone else at the same time, in a secret ceremony in Dorne.”

“And that someone was our Aunt Lyanna,” Arya finished, slowly. It was the first time she’d spoken since she entered the room. They’d all changed since they’d left Winterfell those years ago, but Arya had seemed to have changed almost as much as Bran had. Where she’d once been rash and impulsive she’d become measured and calm. One ready to sit back and observe rather than charge right in. Bran looked at her, eyes piercing.

“Yes. And she gave birth to a child in a tower in Dorne,” he added deliberately, calmly. His eyes landed on each of their faces, one after another. “The trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Sansa was the first one to understand the implications of that—but then, she’d been more involved in the intrigues of court and succession than either Jon or Arya had. Jon had never had to contend with the succession because he’d never thought he’d be part of it, not until he’d been named King in the North. But Littlefinger had pressed Sansa daily with the reminder that she was the trueborn daughter of Ned Stark, that she should have been next in line before Bran had returned, though Bran had refused the title he should have held.

“You’re saying that there’s another Targaryen child out there, with a greater claim to the throne than Daenerys. And that person is our cousin.”

The way that Sansa framed it spoke strongly of her dislike for Daenerys, of her loyalty to their own family. Jon, though, shook his head pointedly.

“The child is probably dead,” he said with soft certainty. He’d spoken to Daenerys most likely, Bran thought, in the month that it had taken them to sail north and then trek from the coast to Winterfell. He more than likely knew of the attempts that had been made on her life and her brother’s. “Robert Baratheon wanted every Targaryen killed. Daenerys and her brother barely escaped.”

Bran did not let Jon’s words lie for long, eager to have it out in the open.

“No. Because someone found Lyanna, just before she died,” Bran intoned evenly. Sam gave him a nervous, pleading look, but Bran pressed on. “She didn’t survive long after the child was born, but it was long enough to give instructions. To tell this person to protect her son Aegon, the true heir to the Iron Throne, at all costs.”

Arya was the first one to catch on. Bran saw it, the way that realization dawned behind her eyes, the way her head turned to look at Jon, as if she was just seeing him for the first time. She glanced back at Bran, then, a look of slow desperation in her gaze, as if begging him to tell her it wasn’t true. He didn’t.

“That person was our father,” he said simply.

Sansa’s eyes widened, then, too, as the implication hit her. She shook her head vehemently. “No…” she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper.

“And he decided that the best way to protect this child, his nephew, from being killed was to hide who he really was,” Bran continued slowly, unfazed. “To bring him back to Winterfell and raise him as his own bastard son.”

“ _No_ , Bran! Stop it!” Sansa exclaimed, utterly unwilling to believe it. “How can you even _say_ this? Our father was not a liar. He taught us, raised us to believe that truth and honor are paramount, that—”

Arya stepped forward and grasped her sister’s arm, her gaze soft and knowing. Sansa quieted immediately at the touch.

“Is it easier to believe that our father told a lie to protect an innocent child, or that he broke his marriage vows to our mother?” she asked slowly, her tone resigned. “He _had_ to be honest, beyond reproach. He had to be so honest that no one would ever doubt his word, no one would ever suspect him of a lie.”

There was silence in the room for a long moment, the light of the torches dancing against the stone. Bran wasn’t surprised that Arya had been the first one to understand; she knew a great deal about truth and lies, a great deal about what could be accomplished by subtly intertwining both. Perhaps that had been in her blood, more than she had realized.

Bran looked up at Jon, but Jon’s expression was inscrutable, his lips drawn into a tight line. Stress was evident in his drawn expression, the rigid lines of his body, but he didn’t speak, didn’t move a muscle. Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Jon?” he ventured nervously.

As if his friend’s words had roused him, Jon moved suddenly—and in two long strides, he was at the door. He flung it open with such force that it slammed against the stone wall beside it with a loud _bang_. And then he was gone.


	2. DAENERYS

Winterfell was nothing like Daenerys had envisioned. She’d known the North to be a humbler place than King’s Landing, but she’d somehow expected Winterfell, the stronghold of the North, to be a grander place than it was. The place seemed even more dwarfed by the blankets of snow that fell on and off every few days, by the sheer amount of people that were occupying it now, all those evacuated from the northern towns as the army of the dead marched South. They’d managed to evacuate some of those too young or too old to fight with a small contingent of soldiers to Bear Island, but even that hadn’t seemed to help much. There was a constant bustle of people and noise that was too much for the small space, and the snow kept falling and falling with only a brief respite.

Drogon and Rhaegal, at least, didn’t seem to mind the cold one bit; they still managed to hunt and didn’t seem to have any problem landing in the snow. Rhaegal had even begun to lay his head down into a snow drift, almost like a puppy, as Jon stroked his hand along the dragon’s snout. The gesture had begun at her behest, a way to show the lords of the North that she could not turn her dragons on _them_ —but it had become much more as she’d fallen more and more in love with Jon Snow every day. Her children seemed to love Jon as much as she did—and she found herself wondering, with increasing frequency, what it would have been like if Rhaego had lived. Would Jon have loved him, too, treated him like a son?

Daenerys believed heavily in her heart that he would have. She knew of Catelyn Stark, knew the woman had never accepted Jon or treated him like family, although Jon had never told her in as many words. Jon was a good man—a better man than she deserved, more than likely—and he would never let a child feel unwanted. Of that she was certain.

Daenerys stood on one of the balconies, watching the front gate as people and goods moved in and out. They’d been stockpiling as much grain as they could, and they were had already received two shipments of dragonglass weapons, spears and swords and even arrowheads. It was a race against time, and it was uncertain if they would win that race. It was uncertain if they’d be able to forge enough dragonglass weapons by the time their great enemy made it to Winterfell—and even if they won, there was still the threat from the south. Jaime Lannister had arrived to Winterfell barely a week after they had, with a small force of men loyal to him—but that barely made a dent in the force his sister had at her disposal, not if she was bringing in the Golden Company, not if Euron Greyjoy was still supporting her.

Daenerys sighed. She stood by what she had told Jon, that she didn’t regret venturing north of the Wall. She was glad that she had seen the army of the dead, seen the size and the scale of it, seen the power of the Night King. But it seemed too much of a sacrifice, now, to have lost one of her children and to still have an army to the south to contend with. They’d gotten Jaime Lannister’s loyalty and military prowess out of it, but it still seemed, in so many ways, too high a price to pay.

But then, if she hadn’t gone, Jon would be dead, and Daenerys couldn’t bear to think of that. Couldn’t bear to think of it, even though it could still come to pass. He was too good of a man not to throw himself into the front lines of the fight against the dead. Not that Daenerys could stand to stay behind, either. She’d been flying with Drogon, practicing movements with him, hoping to be able to dodge another javelin when the time came, as she’d done that day above the Wall. But Rhaegal she worried about; Viserion had not been astute enough to avoid the spear without a rider to help guide him, and she felt a pit of fear in her stomach that Rhaegal could meet the same fate.

Of course, he could not stay behind, either; if the war against the dead was lost, his life was forfeit anyway, and their only chance of winning was to employ every tool at their disposal against their great enemy. Every choice was a decision between the lesser of two bad outcomes; everything was a balance between honor, loyalty, and the lives of those she cared about, the bastard Jon Snow chief among them.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Jon appeared in the courtyard below. She felt a familiar swell of excitement at the mere sight of him, one that made her feel giddy and young and not at all fit to be Queen of seven kingdoms of people looking up to her for guidance. She’d managed to leave him behind, that day beyond the Wall, but only _just_ ; a part of her had almost been willing to put everyone’s lives at risk just to try to rescue him. And that frightened her; she remembered what that kind of devotion to Drogo had cost her, the price she’d paid for trying to save him. She touched her stomach absently at the memory, thinking back to when her body had been swollen with life growing inside her—something she’d never experience again.

But Jon wasn’t walking through the courtyard, checking on their grain and their weapons, as he did most days. No, he was striding through the space like a man possessed, a man on a mission. A moment later, his young sister Arya appeared behind him, calling his name futilely. He didn’t respond, just plowed onward through the snow, striding out the front gate. His direwolf, its coat sleek and white, bounded after him with a low whine.

Something was wrong; it would be obvious to anyone with eyes. Several people in the courtyard stopped and stared in the direction he’d gone. Lady Sansa arrived next, walking more slowly than her sister. She was more conscious of her image because she knew she had to be, a struggle Daenerys knew well; as a woman, she had to appear twice as competent and controlled as a man would or men would not take her seriously. Arya didn’t have the same handicap; any man who had seen her fight knew that although small, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Sansa strolled across the courtyard at a fast clip, following her sister and half-brother, and Daenerys stood there for a moment, wondering if she should follow. Whatever was going on was more than likely family business of some sort; there was a tension between the Stark siblings still, as if they were fighting to figure out who they were to each other, how to interact after all they’d experienced on their different roads. It wasn’t Daenerys’ place to interfere in Stark family affairs; she wasn’t family.

But then Jon’s youngest brother appeared, the strange crippled boy, pushed in his chair by Samwell Tarly. She hadn’t felt guilt about the example she’d made of his father and brother until she’d met the man, so honorable and kind and such a good friend of Jon’s. Once she was on the Iron Throne—if the army of the dead did not decimate them first—she intended to restore him as the head of his family. It was the least she could do, and then the family would not be decimated as Tyrion had cautioned. She’d legitimize the child, too, if he wanted, even though the boy was not his blood.

Daenerys had intended to stay where she was, letting the Stark family contend with their own issues, until the youngest Stark brother looked up at her, his piercing gaze meeting hers. Daenerys almost gasped at the intensity of his gaze, filled with layers and complexities that she couldn’t even begin to navigate, not even if she tried. No, she had no idea what he was thinking, but his look told her one thing without fail—she needed to follow Jon.

She broke Bran’s gaze and, as calmly as she could, made her way down the nearest stairway. Jon had walked out on foot, not taking a horse with him, which meant that he hadn’t intended to go far. More than likely, one of his sisters would have caught up with him, preventing him from getting as far as he could on foot without being interrupted. She could catch up; she was sure of it.

Two Unsullied guards followed her the moment she left the front gate of Winterfell, and she gave them a quick nod of thanks as she followed the footsteps in the snow. Her eyes followed the trail the others had made as she continued to walk, her feet sinking into the drifts of snow—and she saw Jon at the top of the hill where they greeted the dragons most days. Her armies had camped themselves down the hill, in view of Winterfell, where she knew they were training with some of the Northern men.

Daenerys trudged as quickly as she could through the snow as she made her way up the hill; Jon was already at the top and Arya was scurrying up it, as fast as her small legs would take her. Lady Sansa was picking her way through the wet slush with more care than Daenerys was using; Daenerys was once again glad to be wearing trousers where the red-haired Lady of Winterfell wore a dress, impractical for this kind of trek through the snow. Daenerys would catch up with her easily.

What surprised Daenerys, though, was Drogon and Rhaegal both circling the hill, the way they often did before settling on a place to land. Daenerys could usually get them to come when she wanted; she’d been told over and over throughout her life that dragons could form an emotional and even magical connection with their riders—perhaps forged by the Valyrian blood in their veins—and when Drogon came, Rhaegal usually followed.

But they’d never come for Jon; Daenerys wasn’t even certain that it was possible. She’d never heard of anyone without Valyrian blood forming a connection with a dragon—many who had tried to ride one had died in the attempt. Rhaegal had bonded to Jon, certainly, tolerated his touch and affection, but this was something else entirely.

Daenerys sped up her gait, trying to make her way up the hill faster. Arya had reached the top, was standing next to Jon. Daenerys could hear the echo of her voice from the distance, but she couldn’t make out what the girl was saying—but whatever it was, she seemed to be yelling. Daenerys reached Sansa’s side.

Sansa looked startled at her sudden appearance, but she had enough grace not to show it in her voice.

“Your Grace,” she said with a tiny bow of her head as Daenerys came up beside her. Daenerys had to force a small smile.

“Lady Sansa,” she returned in greeting. “What, precisely, is going on here?”

The red-haired woman opened her mouth, then closed it, shaking her head mutely.

“Just go,” she said instead of answering. “You’ll be faster than me up this hill.”

Daenerys gave the younger woman a searching glance before shaking her head and making her way up the hill in earnest. Jon’s eldest sister had made very little effort to hide her dislike for Daenerys, not that Daenerys could blame her. She had appeared suddenly, a usurper in the North, a usurper in her brother’s affections. Sansa had always been polite, but in an icy way, and Daenerys couldn’t hold a grudge against her for that.

Daenerys felt the familiar gust of wind as the dragons came to land. She braced herself, trying not to get toppled over by the force as Rhaegal flapped his wings and then landed atop the hill, next to Jon. Arya, she saw, didn’t have the same composure; she stopped talking to Jon mid-word as she toppled over into the snow, rolling several feet down the hill. Drogon, the larger of the two dragons, landed with an even more resounding _boom_.

Jon came up next to Rhaegal and laid his hand against the dragon’s snout, as he often did, and Rhaegal tilted his head into Jon’s hand, eyes falling closed for a relaxed second. Daenerys almost stopped, unsure of why she was running up the hill in the first place. She’d seen this a dozen times already, Jon laying a hand on one of her dragons and them accepting it, accepting his touch. She forgot, in that moment, why she’d panicked and followed. If the dragons were willing to accept Jon without her present, it should not be something for her to worry about. She trusted Jon—and in any case, she was the only one who could control them. She was the only one alive, save Robert Baratheon’s still-living bastard, who had Valyrian blood in her veins. And Gendry had but a fraction of what she did.

Yes, Daenerys almost forgot why she was worried—until she heard Sansa’s voice from behind her.

“Oh no,” the younger woman breathed, more to herself than to Daenerys. “He’s going to try to _ride_ it.”

Daenerys glanced over her shoulder to catch Sansa’s eyes—but her expression was all seriousness, filled with fear. It wasn’t a joke; that much was certain.

Daenerys turned back toward the top of the hill, where Arya was pushing herself to her feet, staying a comfortable distance from the dragons as she called Jon’s name again. Jon’s white direwolf paced back and forth in front of the scene, still whining low in his throat. Daenerys started to run, or as close as she could do through the slippery banks of snow.

“Jon!” she called as well, her voice joining a chorus with Arya’s. But Jon didn’t turn, appearing to all the world as if he heard nothing, knew nothing of their presence. She wasn’t far from him any longer, certainly close enough that he could hear her. “Jon, you _can’t_! He could kill you!”

Daenerys slipped in the snow and caught herself with her hand before she could tumble all the way down. She stood up and watched, wide eyed, as Rhaegal lowered his shoulder, making a bridge for Jon to climb up onto his back. And Jon did, with more grace than Daenerys usually managed, a marginally larger frame mounting a considerably smaller dragon. Daenerys ran.

“Jon!” she called again—but Rhaegal pushed off the ground, flapped his wings, and took off into the sky, almost bowling her over once again. She reached the top of the hill, panting from the trek through the snow, watching in muted disbelief as Rhaegal’s figure became smaller in the sky above, Jon on his back. Arya Stark stared at Daenerys with wide, desperate eyes.

“ _Follow him_!” she yelled with none of the decorum her sister had shown.

Daenerys didn’t have to be told twice. Drogon dropped his shoulder, the same way Rhaegal had done just moments before, and Daenerys climbed up onto his back, gripping the spines there, and the dragon took off, following its brother.


	3. JON

It was exhilarating. The wind rushed past his ears as Jon watched Winterfell grow smaller and smaller beneath him. He could see everything from above, could see the grounds of Winterfell, the large army encampment next to it, the old trees of the godswood, which had stood untouched by man for so long. His veins seemed to be flowing with pure energy and excitement, his disbelief falling away as Rhaegal carried him without fight. His body felt like it was one with the dragon, like the two of them were joined. He didn’t tell the dragon where to go, but it seemed to know anyway, flying south and leaving Winterfell in its wake.

Jon watched the trees rush below him with alarming speed as Bran’s words ran through his head, as if on a loop.

_“He decided that the best way to protect this child, his nephew, from being killed was to hide who he really was. To bring him back to Winterfell and raise him as his own bastard son.”_

Jon closed his eyes and rested his face against the rough, scaly flesh of the dragon’s neck for a second, just feeling it against his skin. He knew what Bran was—inasmuch as anyone could _really_ understand what Bran was—knew the young man knew things, could see them. Bran had proven it more than once in the weeks since Jon had returned to Winterfell.

And yet, despite all that knowledge, Jon hadn’t been able to believe it. He hadn’t been able to believe that there was any truth behind what Bran had said. It was too insane, too unbelievable. He was Ned Stark’s bastard son—he’d known it all his life. He’d been told it over and over again until it was like a mantra tattooed into his mind. He was a bastard. Ned Stark was his father. Everything about him, his entire identity, was built upon those two simple facts. There was no reason to believe anything else.

And that was when it had struck him, that there was another way to prove it. He’d read the stories and the histories about dragons, and Daenerys had told him once again as they’d ventured toward Winterfell. She’d confessed to him that she’d been terrified for Rhaegal in battle without a rider but that no one without Valyrian blood had _ever_ successfully ridden a dragon, not to her knowledge. That, in fact, most dragonriders in the histories had borne the name _Targaryen_ , but she was the last Targaryen. That there would never be another, because she could bear no children.

Jon had remembered the first time he’d touched Drogon, on the cliffs at Dragonstone when the dragon had come before him, teeth bared. Drogon could have hurt him in that moment, could have killed him—but instead, he’d let Jon reach out and touch him, and Daenerys had been awed. If Jon could ride the dragon, he knew, it would be proof that he had Valyrian blood in his veins; it would be proof that he was the son of Rhaegar Targaryen.

In retrospect, Jon supposed that some part of him must have believed it. He’d known that if Rhaegal had rejected him, he’d most likely have died, and yet he’d gone and tried anyway. He’d tried because some part of him had been sure that he’d succeed, and that would be confirmation of what he already knew but refused to believe.

“ _Jon_!”

Jon opened his eyes and looked over in the direction of the sound—and flying beside him was one large black shape, the tiny, silver-haired Daenerys sitting astride Drogon. And in one second, Jon’s heart fell into the pit of his stomach. He felt nauseated at the realization of what this meant.

“ _Jon, what are you_ doing?”

Jon could barely hear her over the roar of the wind in his ears. The moment of elation was gone entirely, replaced by a growing feeling of dread. Feeling the encroaching inevitability, he pointed down at the ground to signal the Queen—and Rhaegal seemed to understand his intentions immediately, beginning to circle slowly, preparing to land in a clearing between the trees.

Another wave of unease swept over him as he looked at the green scales on the back of the dragon’s neck. Rhaegal, who Daenerys had named after her deceased brother. Her deceased brother, who also happened to be Jon’s true father. For a fleeting second, Jon forced his mind away from the realization, thought instead of Maester Aemon, trying to figure out the proper way to categorize their familial relation. He thought of the old man with a sense of fondness, and that managed to drive away the encroaching feeling of nausea for the moment.

Rhaegal landed with a great _thud_ —and he lowered his shoulder for Jon to slide off. Without thinking about it, Jon ran a hand along the dragon’s flank in silent thanks before the dragon took off again into the skies—and Jon managed not to fall over from the rush of wind the dragon created, just barely. Drogon took off a moment later, and Daenerys stood across from him in the clearing.

“What were you _thinking_?” she asked, her tone all regal command. Her hair was disheveled from the ride, wisps of it sticking out in every direction. One of her braids had come unpinned, falling into her face, and her cheeks were flushed with color, part anger and part exhilaration from the cold wind against her face. She looked more beautiful than ever, more beautiful than when she was all done up and perfect. She looked like she did in bed, her hair mussed and her skin flushed with pleasure as he drove into her, her small body stronger than it looked.

Jon swallowed thickly at the thought, unable to find an answer. Daenerys didn’t seem to notice; her anger was unfazed.

“You could have _died_!” she exclaimed, and it almost looked as though there were tears in her eyes—but perhaps they were just irritated from the harsh winds. “You’re lucky that you’ve bonded with Rhaegal as much as you have. To be the first person in recorded history to successfully become a dragonrider without Valyrian blood. You stupid, reckless _idiot_.”

Jon swallowed past another lump in his throat. Gods help him, he _loved_ this woman—her fiery anger, her icy composure, and every bit of her in between. And it killed him to know that he was about to ruin it, but he couldn’t keep silent. Not and let her keep thinking, feeling…without _knowing_ —

“I’m not,” Jon said slowly, lowering his eyes. Jon didn’t look up, but he could imagine the silver-haired queen’s disbelieving look. As it was, he heard her annoyed exhale.

“A reckless idiot? I can assure you, you _are_ ,” she said, all haughty sarcasm and confidence. Jon shook his head, wishing he’d pulled back his hair as his wild curls hit him in the face with the movement. He couldn’t imagine what a mess it would be to comb out his curls later, with as mussed as they must have been from the ride.

“I’m not the first dragonrider without Valyrian blood,” he corrected, his voice thick with disgust. He looked up to see Daenerys pursing her lips in confusion.

“Oh? Have you found some undiscovered historical records of non-Valyrian dragonriders?” she asked coolly, eyebrow raised in disbelief. Jon shook his head and lowered his eyes again. How could he possibly tell her, when he knew it would crush her just as much as it had crushed him? How could he possibly find the words? He cleared his throat, stalling for time.

“I have Valyrian blood,” he said finally, vaguely—and just forcing those words out of his throat was difficult enough. Part of him thought he should just go back to Winterfell, get Bran to explain to her in his usual dispassionate voice. But no, that wasn’t fair to her; _he_ owed her the truth.

“Did you—have you found out who you mother is?” Daenerys asked hesitantly after a moment, laying her hand on Jon’s arm. She knew how much it had plagued him, not knowing who his mother was. They’d had a lot of time, on the journey to his childhood home, to discuss that and so much more. “That’s wonderful.”

Jon jerked away as if burned, taking a few steps back from Daenerys—and when he finally met her eyes, she was looking at him with confusion and hurt. Jon swallowed back a rush of bile in the back of his throat, thinking of Jaime and Cersei; this wasn’t the same thing, but it was nearly as bad. It disgusted him at the same time as he wanted to reach out and grab her, pull her body against his and kiss her deeply. He pushed back the impulse.

“I did,” he confirmed finally, rigidly. “But she’s not the one with the Valyrian blood. My father was.”

Jon looked up again to see the confusion in her eyes, and she shook her head.

“Ned Stark isn’t of Valyrian descent,” she said slowly, and somehow, Jon thought she might have expected his next words.

“Ned Stark wasn’t really my father,” he said dully—and it was the first time he’d said it out loud, so clear and without obfuscation of any kind. Ned Stark _wasn’t_ his father, not technically, though Ned Stark was still his father in all the ways that counted. Jon remembered what he’d said to Theon, that he could be a Stark and a Greyjoy both—and it turned out that Ned Stark really _was_ just as much a father to Theon as he had been to Jon. Daenerys eyed him questioningly.

“Then who…?”

She trailed off and Jon turned around, unable to face her. He ran his hand over his face, cursing everything—the old gods, the new, the Lord of Light, all of them. He’d loved Ygritte and they’d ended up on opposite sides of a war. He’d been forced to give her up, and then she’d died. And he’d finally fallen in love again, and he was being forced to give up the woman he loved once more. Jon took a deep breath.

“Rhaegar Targaryen,” he said finally, almost unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth. He repeated himself numbly. “My father was Rhaegar Targaryen. My mother was Lyanna Stark, Ned Stark’s sister. He lied about who I was, because he was afraid Robert Baratheon would kill me if he knew I existed.”

There was only silence then, but Jon dared not turn around; he couldn’t bear to see Daenerys’ face, then, couldn’t bear to confront that truth. A moment later, he felt a small hand against his bicep; Jon fought the urge to pull away.

“I thought I was alone in the world, the last Targaryen left,” she said softly, and Jon could hear her voice catching, could guess there were tears in her eyes then. “This is incredible.”

Jon _did_ pull away then, taking a step back and turning on her with an icy expression. Her own gaze was confused as she looked into his eyes.

“Incredible?” he echoed. “How can you say that, knowing what we’ve _done_?”

Daenerys’ brow furrowed. “What we’ve done?”

Jon stared at her in disbelief, almost unable to comprehend that she wasn’t losing her mind like he was. He didn’t understand how she could be so calm, so accepting.

“You’re my _aunt_ , and we’ve had _sex_!” he exclaimed heatedly. “Dozens of times!”

She blinked and took a step forward; Jon took a step back. Daenerys stopped where she was and then spoke.

“Targaryens have wed brother and sister for hundreds of years to keep the bloodline pure,” she said, her tone all cool composure. “Before Viserys decided he needed an alliance with the Dothraki, I’d grown up believing Viserys and I would marry. I don’t see how this changes anything.”

Jon turned away again, squeezing his hands into fists. He’d been certain that Daenerys would have been as upset, as scandalized and sickened as he was. He’d forgotten that she’d been raised a Targaryen, and he’d been raised a Stark, and those were two _very_ different things. Marriage between cousins wasn’t unheard of in the North, but _this_? Was this closer to taboo, aunt and nephew? Jon wasn’t entirely certain, but the fact that this had him thinking through the intricacies of what was an acceptable level of familial coupling disgusted him.

He heard a sound of shuffling through the snow, Daenerys moving closer to him, although this time she had the sense not to touch.

“If this is true—and considering the source I imagine you heard it from, I assume it is—you’re the product of two very powerful houses,” she said, her tone low and even. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a bastard of House Stark and a nameless woman or a bastard of House Stark and House Targaryen. You’re still you, and the North will follow you.”

Jon shook his head, feeling numb.

“I’m not,” he said dully, closing his eyes. Daenerys didn’t say anything in response, seemingly waiting for him to elaborate, so he did. “I’m not a bastard. Rhaegar had his marriage annulled and married my mother. There are records of it, apparently, at the Citadel.”

For the first time, Jon felt the cold of the clearing around them, of the snow beneath his feet. Everything seemed to stand still, frozen and tense, and Jon turned around, meeting Daenerys’ gaze again finally—and he was shocked by what he saw there, by how totally shattered she looked. That was the expression that Jon had expected when he’d first told Daenerys the truth, belated as it was. Jon frowned.

“What?”

Daenerys looked away, her gaze scanning over the grove of trees next to them. After a long minute, she turned back to Jon.

“After Viserys died…I believed I was coming back to Westeros to claim my birthright,” she said softly, her voice dejected. “But it’s not my birthright—it’s yours. By the laws of the succession, you would have been next in line.”

Jon felt that fact rush over him as though someone had poured snow down his back. He hadn’t thought of it that way, not at all. He’d almost forgotten that Sansa and Bran had both said it, not willing to think through the implications. Jon shook his head vehemently.

“I don’t want it,” he told her seriously. “I didn’t choose to follow you because this is your birthright. I chose to follow you—and so did everyone else—because we believe in _you_ , in what you represent, in what you want to accomplish.”

“And the houses of the North, the Night’s Watch, the wildlings—they decided to follow you because they believe in _you_ ,” she replied numbly. “All this time, I had my eyes on the Iron Throne because I believed it was _owed_ to me…and you were just trying to save your people. You…deserve it more than I do. It should be yours.”

Jon opened his mouth to protest again, but Daenerys held up her hand to silence him, and despite himself, Jon listened. Daenerys spoke again.

“We should get back. Your sis—” Daenerys caught herself at the last moment, seeming to realize again about the new revelation, the implications it had on everything. She took a deep breath. “Your family is worried about you.”

And Jon didn’t say anything more as the two dragons began circling them, preparing to land.


	4. TYRION

The war room at Winterfell was different than it had been at Dragonstone. Not just because there were so many more people in a much smaller room, but because there were so many more people with _opinions_ —and blessedly or regrettably, most of their opinions were valid. A Dothraki commander, his opinions translated through Missandei, plus Grey Worm, Jaime, Tormund, and Jon all had the expertise of military command. Tyrion, Sansa, and Arya thought all in subterfuge and strategy. Daenerys, as the Queen, held final sway—and then there was young Brandon Stark in the corner, the one they’d all learned very quickly not to underestimate.

He disappeared to the godswood every morning, flying with ravens and hawks and crows, and he came back with news of their enemy’s movements. At Jon’s behest, he paid particular attention to each of the White Walker commanders, knowing that killing even one would give them an instant advantage in the battle to come, all the corpses they’d reanimated crumbling to dust the instant it was killed.

They’d only had a handful of dragonglass arrowheads made, mindful that they needed to prioritize weapons with the potential for multiple uses. The few arrows that had been made were being given to their best archers, with the best bows that could be produced. A long-distance assassination of one of the Walker commanders would save them a great deal of potential losses, which was why knowing the exact position of each commander was paramount in making their plans.

But outside of that, there was rarely a consensus. It was an endless squabble on which wing of the army should attack from which angle, where would be the best place to meet the army of the dead in order to give them a strategic advantage. They were running out of time to make that decision; the army was marching mercifully slowly, but they did have the unfortunate advantage of not needing to eat or rest. The northernmost towns had already been evacuated, but every moment they waited gave the dead more of an advantage as they raised corpses from the ancestral crypts of Norreys and Umbers, from the graveyards of the common folk, without hesitation or regret. But every moment they waited also gave _them_ more time to amass more weapons, train more soldiers—and it was a toss-up over whether waiting was a good strategic choice or not.

It had been nearly a week since Jon and Daenerys had ridden off one day on the dragons, and every day since, they’d gone out in the afternoons, whether it was clear or it snowed, and twisted and dodged through the air. It was a terrifying sight, and the people stopped to watch them every day—to watch as they started slinging dragon fire at each other, just to see if they could dodge the attacks.

Tyrion had wanted to ride a dragon once. As a child, he’d dreamed of it, of riding a huge beast and soaring over everything. As an adult, he found that the idea terrified him, that he had no desire to put it into practice. With Daenerys, it was one thing; she’d seen the dragons hatch, as tiny creatures she could hold even in her small hands. But to see Jon walk straight up to one of the gigantic animals and throw himself onto its back without fear…Jon Snow was a braver man than Tyrion could ever hope to be, and that much was clear.

But outside of that and the war room, Tyrion never saw the two speak anymore. He’d spied them together over and over again since that first night on the ship. It was always Jon sneaking into Daenerys’ room, never the other way around; silver-haired Daenerys would always attract attention around Winterfell, while Jon could slink around its halls relatively unnoticed. But Tyrion had not seen Jon slinking into the Queen’s quarters at night for several days, had not spotted them standing on the balconies, bodies close together, discussing things softly and intimately as they had done in days past.

If Tyrion were anyone else, he might not have noticed. As it was, very few knew of the Queen’s liaisons with the Warden of the North, and most of those who did had been on the ship with them. The two had done less work to keep it quiet then, with only a small crew and a handful of close friends and advisors in their midst. Tyrion wasn’t certain if any of them were watching any longer; he wasn’t certain if any of them had noticed.

Young Brandon Stark was watching, though, always. He seemed to be everywhere, somehow, despite being rendered half-immobile. When Tyrion turned his head away from watching the Queen, Bran Stark was somehow always there, watching them all. It was disconcerting.

Tyrion shook away his drifting thoughts, turning his attention back to their meeting. His brother was talking, pointing to a mountain pass not far from Winterfell, which seemed to be right in the path of their great enemy. Tyrion was surprised, still, to see Jaime there in their strategy sessions, surprised anyone trusted him enough to include him. But it had been at the insistence of Bran Stark that he be present, and no one dared contest the boy, not anymore. Tyrion, for his part, still only half-believed that his brother wouldn’t run back to Cersei at the first opportunity, especially since she held their child hostage in her womb.

And then it was Jon, shaking his head at Jaime’s proposition.

“If we put archers up on the sides of the mountain pass, they’re an easy target,” he pointed out, an argument they’d already had many times. “The Night King has a dragon now.”

Tyrion looked over at the Queen, her face pale and drawn. She hated the mention of her child, lost to the enemy. Knowing she’d have to kill him—or possibly die trying, knowing that he’d try to kill her, just as his namesake had threatened those years ago. She stood beside the table, her hand clutching its edge, white-knuckled, as if she needed the grip to stay on her feet.

“Regardless of where we position the archers, they’ll be an easy target,” Jaime countered, his tone haughty as usual. “Their lives are forfeit; there’s no way around that. The only question is whether they’ll be able to take a few White Walker commanders down before they go.”

Everyone exchanged a grim glance at Jaime’s words. They all knew it was true; the archers, more than likely, would be the first target for the Night King and his dragon. Only Jaime, though, was willing to lay it out so bleakly, was willing to speak without remorse about the lives they knew they would sacrifice. He knew, first hand, the damage that could be wreaked by a dragon; he’d barely escaped it himself.

“Unless we camouflage them somewhere in the trees,” Jon insisted, pointing at another spot further north, the edge of a huge forest. “The Queen and I can use Drogon and Rhaegal to distract the Night King, give them enough time to get off a few more shots, at least.”

“He’ll just take the whole forest, then!” Jaime was frustrated, that much was obvious to Tyrion especially, who’d been able to see his brother’s temper his whole life. “At least if we attack them at the pass, we can force them into a bottleneck, and then one of our dragons can burn the forces behind—”

“Your Grace?”

It was Jon’s voice, and Tyrion looked over, surprised, to see the Queen swaying a little on her feet, gripping the edge of the table even more tightly. Jaime stopped talking, and the whole room turned to her just in time to see her legs give out beneath her.

“Daenerys!”

And Jon was at her side, catching her in his arms before she could fall to the floor. Her eyelids fluttered, and a moment later, she was back, her feet under her once more, half standing and half leaning against Jon.

“I’m fine!” she insisted quietly. “My apologies; I was simply a little lightheaded for a moment.”

“Someone get the Queen a chair,” Tyrion said—and he may have been the smallest person in the room, but everyone scrambled into action at his words, and suddenly a chair materialized and Jon helped guide her into it. Most of them had the sense to keep their distance—except Jon, who knelt by her chair, still holding onto her hand.

“Are you all right?”

Jon’s voice was tentative, almost afraid, as he looked up at her—and Tyrion was nearly tempted to look away at the pure devotion in his gaze. This felt like a private moment, one that none of them should have intruded upon; part of Tyrion was ready to send everyone away, to postpone the discussion of war and tactics until later.

“I’m fine,” Daenerys insisted again, and she pulled her hand out of his grasp. Jon looked down at his own hand for a moment, and a look passed behind his eyes, one that Tyrion couldn’t begin to decipher. He stood once more as the Queen spoke again. “I simply need some water.”

Missandei, in the corner, poured a glass and carried it over to hand to the Queen without any further direction. Tyrion was surprised as she caught his gaze for a moment, hesitant, before she spoke.

“Your Grace, you should eat,” she said softly, clearly trying to pitch her voice low enough that the rest of the room didn’t catch it. “You didn't eat a bite this morning, and you scarcely touched your food last night, either.”

Tyrion frowned at the words, his resolve that something was dreadfully wrong growing stronger in his mind. And then Daenerys shook her head, looking rather queasy at the mere mention of food.

Tyrion felt his gaze pulled to the side—and he met Jaime’s eyes for a long second, his brother’s glance suddenly knowing, seeing. Tyrion exhaled slowly and nodded to his brother, not needing to speak.

“I’ll get a maester,” Jaime said, making his way to the door, but Daenerys’ angry voice stopped him mid-stride.

“I don’t _need_ a maester,” she hissed angrily—and despite any attempts otherwise, the whole room was looking at her, then, unable to tear their eyes away. She was pale, but her gaze was still steely and in perfect control. “I’m _not_ ill, I’m simply—”

“Pregnant,” Tyrion finished with a raised eyebrow, his gaze penetrating. It felt an odd parody of the conversation he’d had with his sister, not long before. Their children would be of an age, if they survived, warring heirs to the Iron Throne. Even if one or both of them were girls, no one could aruge that women weren’t fit to rule, not anymore.

Daenerys shook her head vehemently.

“I can’t be pregnant,” she proclaimed with perfect conviction. “I’m barren.”

There was a long, thick silence in the room, and everyone looked equally uncomfortable. Jaime and Tormund looked perhaps the most discomfited; neither of them had much of a connection with this Queen, and it likely felt an intrusion for them to be in this room, privy to such a personal conversation. It was Missandei, finally, who broke the silence.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” she murmured softly, her tone deeply apologetic. “But it has been eight weeks since you last bled. Perhaps you are mistaken.”

There was another uncomfortable silence, and Tyrion felt it, too, that time. This was not a conversation for men; this was women’s business and the intimate life of the Queen. But it was clear that none of them were certain how to extricate themselves from the situation, and Tyrion, despite his discomfort, would not have even tried. He was Hand of the Queen, and her pregnancy, whether they liked it or not, was a political matter.

Sansa was the one to break the silence that time.

“If the Queen is pregnant, then who is the father?” she asked to no one in particular—and Tyrion turned to her, his former wife, so grown and strong and yet so naïve still in some ways. He looked at her, and Jon and Daenerys did too—and she must have seen the truth in their eyes, because _she_ suddenly went as pale as Daenerys had; suddenly _she_ looked like the one about to collapse. Tyrion was at her side in a moment, a hand on her arm as he guided her to another chair.

“Sit down, Lady Sansa,” he said gently—and for all the history, for all the things that lay unspoken between them, she nodded and let him lead her to the chair. Once she had sat, Tyrion turned back to the Queen, who again looked a little queasy herself. Tyrion sighed.

“This is not an ideal situation, it being wartime and all, but there does seem to be an easy solution to this whole problem,” he remarked blithely. He went over to the far table and poured himself a glass of wine, not offering one to anyone else. “A marriage would be a good political alliance for the both of you, and you won’t have to worry about the pesky problem of who will be your heir. And the Northernmen will be happy to see a child of one of their own in the succession. Jon Snow is a bastard, but he can be legitimized, of course, by royal—”

“Stop.”

Daenerys’ voice was no longer filled with the annoyance and anger that it had been, but there was still rage seething beneath the word, barely contained behind a cloak of icy composure. And Tyrion did stop, looking up to the Queen with a confused gaze. He’d thought she’d be happy—a child she thought she’d never have, a love marriage that also had political merit. It was more than she’d thought she’d have, surely, when they’d first discussed a political marriage for her some time ago.

But Daenerys looked anything _but_ happy. In fact, she looked positively aggrieved, looked more as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders than she did when discussing the impending threat of the army of the dead. Tyrion was good at reading people, was good at understanding Daenerys and how to appeal to her better judgment, most times—but at that moment, he felt completely lost.

“If I’m to have a political marriage, I have better choices than someone who can barely stand to touch me,” she hissed, her eyes cold. “In any event, the child most likely will not live.”

Tyrion, for once, spoke without thinking; he blamed the oddness of the situation, the strange feeling of floating without an anchor.

“Can barely stand to touch you?” he echoed. “He certainly managed to impregnate you just fine.”

Jon’s gaze fell upon Tyrion, a look of utter incomprehension on his face, then back at Daenerys. He stared at her for a long minute, and slowly, recognition started to settle onto his features. Tyrion watched them with a strange fascination; it was clear enough, then, that something was going on, something Tyrion desperately didn’t understand.

“You didn’t tell them.”

The words that escaped Jon’s mouth were a dull statement of fact where they could have been an accusation. He sounded numb, overwhelmed—and who could blame him? Tyrion thought. Tyrion had heard him say, more than once, that he never wanted to bring a bastard into the world, and Daenerys had just as much as told him she was resigned to condemning him to that fate. Daenerys, for her part, looked unashamed.

“I told no one, at your insistence, My Lord.”

Daenerys said the words coldly. The title seemed like more of a blow than a gesture of respect. They’d spoken that way in public since the beginning, of course, but Tyrion had thought that was all subterfuge, all an attempt to preserve their privacy. This, though, was something different—a deliberate attempt to put distance between them, when they’d already been as close as two people could possibly be.

“Didn’t tell us _what_?” Tyrion pressed. He was quickly losing his patience with everyone speaking in riddles; it was like being caught between Varys and Littlefinger once more, though Littlefinger had finally met his deserved end and Varys was nowhere in sight. He was Hand of the Queen; he didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark.

Jaime, however, seemed to sense that this wasn’t his place. Still standing by the door, he finally cleared his throat, bringing the attention of the room to him.

“I should let you all discuss this in private, I think,” he murmured, and a few of the others in the room made a soft noise of agreement as Jaime reached for the door handle once more.

“No.”

Everyone turned to face Bran Stark, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange—so silent, in fact, that Tyrion had almost forgotten that Bran was even in the room. His voice, as toneless as it was, held a certain layer of command in it, strong enough that even Jaime obeyed, despite the fact that the Stark boy had absolutely no dominion over him. Jaime stopped and turned, tense as Tyrion had ever seen him, and he looked at Bran Stark with a dark expression, one that looked almost like fear.

“The truth must be known,” Bran declared solemnly, his eyes dancing across each of the people in the room, though his features remained impassive.

And then he told them.


	5. SANSA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Owing to the fact that I may be legitimately the only person on the planet who enjoys Tyrion/Sansa as a pairing, I thought I'd put fair warning before this chapter that it's tagged for a reason, and it is a legitimate pairing in this story, with smut and everything! If that squicks you, you can probably skip this chapter and not lose too much on the overall plot.

Sansa felt numb. There was no respite from anything, hadn’t been since the moment Littlefinger had put his wicked plans into motion. Her uncle Jon Arryn had died, the royal family had come to Winterfell, and everything had fallen apart for her from the moment she’d laid eyes on the Lannisters and Baratheons. And after everything—absolutely _everything_ she’d been through—right when it seemed like things had been getting better, they’d continued to tumble down, as though down a cliff.

It had been bad enough knowing that the Wall had come down, that there was an army of dead creatures marching directly toward her home, intent on killing them all. It had been bad enough to have her brother Jon come back with news that there _was_ no more King in the North. It had been bad enough to be the one who had been in charge of soothing all the frayed tempers of the northern lords over something she didn’t agree with, something she didn’t support. It had been bad enough knowing that all their negotiations with Cersei had been for nothing, that she was the same evil woman she’d always been.

But to find out her half-brother had never been her brother at all had almost been a stretch too far. To find out that her father had lied to them their entire life…it had crushed her. She understood why he’d done it, certainly, but understanding it logically didn’t make her feel any better about it. She’d asked Bran, after the fact, whether their mother had known the truth, and that had been the most disheartening part of all. To know that their father had never confided in her, that she’d gone to her grave at the hands of the Lannisters never knowing that her husband had never broken their marriage vows at all.

_That_ had crushed her, because Sansa had always seen herself in her mother. She’d wanted to grow up to be just like that, to be wife to a powerful lord. And she had been, twice over, and it hadn’t been anything like the dreams she’d had when she was a little girl. And then, to hear what she’d heard, that Jon and Daenerys had made a child together…it was comparably mild, and somehow the most distressing news that she’d heard in an age.

She came out of the war room feeling dazed and unsettled—but everyone seemed that way, somehow, all of them wandering in different directions in a haze of confusion and disbelief. She’d gone for awhile to talk to some of the other girls, stitching the way she had once there at Winterfell, when she’d still been so much a child. Except the girls were no longer embroidering pretty dresses; they were putting together leather breastplates, sewing together pelts and furs and all the things their armies would need as winter continued to descend and their enemy marched closer.

But she wandered through that scene in a fog, too, barely able to remember what she’d discussed with any of them. In the end, she gave it up as a lost cause, decided it was totally futile for her to try to get anything of substance done that day. Instead, she returned to her chambers and poured herself a glass of wine, then another. She stood at the window and watched the snow fall, letting her mind amble aimlessly through anything and everything.

She wasn't certain how she made it to Tyrion’s door; possibly it was the wine, and possibly it was because she knew he was the surest, most level-headed thinker left in Winterfell, and that was something she desperately needed at that moment. She’d talked to Tyrion more than once since he’d arrived, but mostly it had been about Cersei, about trying to figure out her next move and how to counteract it. After everything, it had been surprisingly easy to be around him—but then, he’d been one of the only men who wasn’t somehow related to her who had been descent to her in the last several years, when he’d had every opportunity not to be.

There was no movement for a long time, and for a moment, Sansa was convinced that he wasn’t in his rooms. It would have made sense, too, for him to still be arguing or discussing or strategizing with the Queen—but after what seemed like an eternity, the door finally opened.

Sansa looked down to see Tyrion standing there before her in just his shirtsleeves and trousers. It had been an age since she’d seen him so disheveled, out of the powerful, war-ready garments he wore outside. Sansa understood the struggle he had to contend with very well, the struggle of having to convince everyone that you were competent, fit to lead. But without all that, he looked much like the Tyrion she’d known in King’s Landing, the Tyrion who had shared her chambers but never her bed.

Sansa cleared her throat daintily, suddenly not remembering why she had come.

“Lord Tyrion,” she murmured primly. “I hope that I’m not disturbing you.”

Tyrion looked up at her, seeming startled to see her standing there. On the table behind him, Sansa could see a half full glass of wine as well, but he didn’t seem drunk, and Sansa had certainly _seen_ him in every shade of drunk from slightly tipsy to passing out. In any event, he had the years of careful cultivation of manners to fall back upon, even if he frequently chose to ignore them.

“Lady Sansa,” he greeted with the same level of courtesy, then hesitated. “Would you like to come in?”

He held the door open for her and she walked inside, reveling in the strangeness of it all. It was strange to see Tyrion Lannister here, in her childhood home, in quarters so different than those they’d shared in King’s Landing. A fire burned in the grate, the only reason he wasn’t freezing without extra layers; the bed was dark and imposing, lined with heavy blankets and furs.

Tyrion poured a second glass of wine without asking, sliding it across the table to her. She took it gratefully and sat down across from him.

“What are we going to do about this?” she asked without preamble, fingering the stem of her wine glass, not taking a sip yet. It struck her, then, that _this_ was part of the reason she’d come to see Tyrion. Jon was no longer a King—he’d given that up—and he didn’t _have_ a Hand. But if there was anyone who had been fulfilling that role for Jon, it had been Sansa—Sansa and Ser Davos both. She and Tyrion were two political players in a great game, and everything was just on the edge of falling apart.

Tyrion scrubbed a hand over his eyes; it was clear that he’d been thinking over the same problem for some time and hadn’t come up with a suitable answer.

“It’s an interesting conundrum,” Tyrion mused lazily, looking into the fire instead of at her as he took a sip of wine. “One with many layers.”

It was only her long-trained manners that kept Sansa from snorting at the obviousness of the statement.

“Your brother,” Tyrion continued after a moment, “sees things, and we’ve all heard enough to believe that what he sees is true. Samwell Tarly may have found a book in the Citadel that says that Rhaegar remarried, but there are presumably no living witnesses, there’s no proof of a child. Jon can ride a dragon, like a true Targaryen—wonderfully lucky, I must say—but would the world even believe, if we told them? If we shouted from the rooftops that Jon Snow is Aegon Targaryen, secret heir to the Iron Throne, would the people even believe it?”

Sansa stared at Tyrion for a moment, his words washing over her. Because, stupidly, she hadn’t even considered that, hadn’t considered that people would need to _believe_ the truth for it to have any impact. _Anyone_ could claim to be a lost Targaryen child, but most people would insist they were lying or crazy—or both. If Jon had _looked_ like his father, that would be one thing—but he looked strikingly like his mother, a lucky outcome for their father in trying to hide him. It would have been difficult to hide a silver-haired boy among all the auburn and dark at Winterfell.

Bran’s word had been enough for the knights of the Vale to agree to the execution of Petyr Baelish, but they already disliked him, and many of them had seen firsthand what Bran could do. But they’d only had to convince a tiny handful of people. The men of Winterfell would believe, possibly—especially those who’d known Ned Stark, had been surprised by his out-of-character fathering of a bastard. They’d _seen_ Jon mount Rhaegal, and some of them had seen evidence of the power of Bran’s visions. But it could easily be perceived as nothing more than a power play by House Stark, and Sansa saw the slight sadness in Tyrion’s eyes, as he saw her come to terms with it.

“Your father may have hidden Jon too well,” Tyrion remarked then, pushing his foot against the leg of the table, tipping his chair back in a slightly precarious fashion. “If they don’t marry, and if people believe, there’s also the matter of the succession, of course. Dreadful business, if Houses Stark and Targaryen go to war over the Iron Throne, after all this.”

Sansa shook her head; she may not have known who Jon’s real parents were until recently, but if there was one thing she’d always known about him, one thing that she was completely certain about, it was that he was an honorable man, just as their father had raised him to be. He wasn’t interested in power for power’s sake. Ned Stark may not have fathered him, but he’d raised him, and her father had never wanted power either. He’d wanted to protect his family and his people in the North, and nothing more.

“Jon wouldn’t do that,” she insisted gently. “He would give it to her before he’d ever fight her for it.”

Tyrion made a slow noise of assent before downing the remainder of his glass and pouring himself another. Sansa took a sip of her own wine then, belatedly remembering she had it. She looked at Tyrion for a second and then spoke.

“So we need to convince them to marry,” she said finally, pushing down the discomfort she felt at that. They already had a child on the way; shying away from their relationship was no longer an option.

Tyrion smirked in response.

“We could always marry her off to someone else, convince the world that the child is from another father,” he mused after a moment, absently. “Our options would be fairly limited, I think, as the child may be born looking very much a Stark.”

Sansa stared at Tyrion for a long minute, almost unable to believe that he’d consider such a scheme. But of course he would, if it was the only option to protect his Queen and still ensure an heir. Sansa shook her head to herself, taking another long gulp of her wine; she may have learned to think strategically, but she was nowhere near the level of Tyrion Lannister, not yet.

“We’d have limited time to put that kind of plan into motion, anyway,” he admitted blithely. “If my math is correct, she could be as much as seven weeks along. Perhaps we could convince everyone it was the child of someone she met at the Dragon Pit. Perhaps Sandor Clegane—he has the right coloring to match Jon. But no, their child will most assuredly be too little to pass off as a Clegane.”

He chuckled to himself at that, and even Sansa found herself laughing despite herself. The image of Daenerys Targaryen with…it was simply too much to contemplate. The situation was too ridiculous; she almost had no choice but to laugh.

“I think you’ve had too much wine,” she said finally, and Tyrion nodded, pushing his glass of wine further away from him, across the table.

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged quietly, and they fell into silence after that. Neither of them spoke, but it was comfortable—and Sansa felt better about the whole thing, suddenly, much better than she had when she’d first come to his rooms. She still had no idea what would happen, but knowing that she and Tyrion were on the same side did a great deal to assuage her uncertainties. Sansa sat back in her chair.

“I wanted children so badly, when I was a girl,” she found herself remarking after a moment, thinking of the child Daenerys was carrying, the child the Queen had thought she would never have. “My mother had five, and I know she hoped to be able to give my father more before…everything started. I wanted that too, wanted to grow up and marry a lord and bear him many little children.”

Tyrion turned to her, the expression of surprise so clear on his face. Sansa had surprised herself, too; she hadn’t expected to say those words to anyone, least of all to him. But the feelings had come cascading upon her when she’d heard the Queen’s utter disbelief in the face of her strong conviction that she’d never bear another child. Sansa understood that feeling well, although for different reasons.

As Tyrion gazed upon her face, his expression softened suddenly—and he was no longer Tyrion the strategist but instead Tyrion the man. She’d seen that look on his face before, that look of quiet pity. She remembered it from when she’d been in the throne room before Joffrey, her dress torn from her shoulders. Remembered the kind way Tyrion had insisted she be covered and taken away from his sadistic nephew. The memory rose up unbidden, but it was difficult to banish all of a sudden, difficult to forget how much honor he’d always had, compared to the rest of his unscrupulous family.

“You still can, My Lady,” Tyrion reassured her after a moment, his tone gentle, the same way that it had been all those years ago, when he’d asked her if she wanted to end her engagement to Joffrey. She hadn’t been truthful to him then, but he’d since proven he deserved at least that much from her. “You’re still young.”

Sansa shook her head, averting her gaze as she felt tears spring up into her eyes. She looked into the fire, watching it dance before her eyes, trying not to let Tyrion see the welling tears. The fire would need another log soon, she noted, although she didn’t move to add one. After a deep, shuddering breath, she finally spoke.

“I don’t know that I can ever let another man touch me like that—the way he’d need to, in order for us to make children,” she admitted finally, shakily, refusing to meet his gaze. She’d never said it aloud before, but she’d thought it any time she’d heard a word about marriage or children. She’d thought that it was a thing she could never bear to go through again. And having the thing she’d always wanted, the dream she’d always had ruined and ripped away from her so cruelly was almost more than she could take.

She was surprised when she felt warm fingers against her hand, but she didn’t pull away. After a long moment, she turned to look at Tyrion again, his compassionate gaze fixed on her.

“Lady Sansa,” he murmured softly, his tone absurdly tender. “You are a good, beautiful woman. One day, you will find a lover who is gentle and patient and will show you all the pleasures your body can provide. I am sure of that.”

Sansa looked at Tyrion, then, her mind skipping through their past, through the moments they’d spent together. They hadn’t been married long before Joffrey’s death, before she’d been spirited away by Lord Baelish, but Sansa found herself wondering, for the first time, what would have happened if none of that had occurred. If she and Tyrion had continued to live together, as husband and wife, would the two of them eventually have learned to love each other? Sansa’s own parents had had an arranged marriage, but they’d learned to love each other with fierce devotion. If Joffrey hadn’t died, would she have learned to love Tyrion the same way, and would he have learned to love her? Would she have even borne him children? After Ramsay Bolton, her marriage to Tyrion seemed almost an idyllic dream by comparison.

With a sudden rush of certainty, Sansa turned her hand over, wrapped her fingers around his. He looked at her with a startled expression, like a deer that had just spotted a hunter.

“Will _you_ show me?”

It took all her courage to say the words, but as soon as she’d said it, she knew that it felt right. Tyrion wasn’t a beautiful man, wasn’t the prince of her dreams—but he was intelligent and capable and kind, and Sansa had found that that mattered more. Joffrey had been classically beautiful, slender and golden-haired, and Ramsay had been rugged and handsome with a clear and piercing gaze—and they’d both been monsters to their core.

“Lady Sansa,” he said, the words half plea, half protest. “You’re drunk.”

Sansa shook her head, lacing her fingers through his as though to prove her point.

“I’ve had barely more than two glasses of wine,” she told him seriously, dipping her head to indicate the still mostly full glass that Tyrion had poured for her when she’d entered his rooms not long before. “You’re a good man, Tyrion Lannister. I trust you, and I know you won’t hurt me. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe that.”

It hadn’t struck her that she’d wanted this, not until she’d said it. But as soon as she had, the idea wrapped itself around her, filling all of her senses. Even if she hadn’t consciously realized she wanted it, part of her must have realized, surely? For why else would she have confided in him about her fears?

Tyrion still looked unconvinced until she added a soft, “ _Please_.”

His face softened again at her quiet plea—and he slipped out of his chair, taking the two steps toward her and stopped, giving her a silent look, waiting for her to change her mind. With Sansa sitting and Tyrion standing, he was just barely shorter than she. She understood, then, that he would do nothing, that she must be the one to pursue this, if it were to be pursued. So slowly, tentatively, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.

His lips were soft, slightly chapped and plush against her own. Ramsay had kissed her, though rarely—a fact she tried very hard to forget—and the only other kisses she could find to compare it to were that of Petyr Baelish and Joffrey…and those, too, were memories she’d rather forget. But that was easy enough when Tyrion’s hand came up and cupped her cheek—and then he tilted his head slightly, his tongue gently teasing along her lower lip. No one had ever kissed her like _that_ before, making it easy enough to banish the thoughts of the last lips that had touched her own. She gasped into the kiss and his tongue danced along her lip once more, just barely dipping inside.

It was clear enough to Sansa that Tyrion was being gentle with her—or perhaps this was how men usually were, with women they actually cared for. Tyrion’s movements were all soft, tentative, giving her every option to pull away if she wanted—but she didn’t, didn’t even want to. Only the slightly abrasive feeling of the coarse hairs of his beard broke the gentleness, but Sansa found that she didn’t even mind that.

Sansa didn’t know how long they stayed like that, kissing gently, didn’t stop until her neck started to ache from the strain of leaning down to meet his lips. She pulled back, breathless, feeling slightly flushed, as if she had spent too long too close to the fire. Suddenly embarrassed, she lowered her eyes, feeling her cheeks flushing slightly.

“Should I…?”

She motioned to the neckline of her dress, hoping he’d get the message—and she looked down at him as he laid a gentle hand on her knee.

“You do not have to do this, My Lady,” he assured her once again, his gaze soft and kind. “There are other men, more _suitable_ men, who could do this for you, if and when you are ready.”

Sansa shook her head, feeling the blush on her cheeks deepen. It shouldn't be embarrassing, admitting that she wanted _him_ , that she trusted _him_ —they had been married, after all. Of course, that marriage had been a sham, something neither of them had wanted at the time.

“I want to,” she assured him again—and Tyrion nodded a solemn nod, taking a step back and walking toward the fireplace.

“Whatever level of undress you are most comfortable with, My Lady,” he said softly, and then he moved to add another log to the fire, not turning toward her. She felt bereft for a moment before she realized that Tyrion was trying to give her privacy, an almost comical fact considering the situation. And then there was the fact that he kept using her title, though Sansa couldn’t quite put a finger on why. An attempt to put distance between them, perhaps? An attempt to remind her of the respect he felt for her?

Rather than pursing that line of thought, Sansa steeled herself and stood. She _wanted_ to do this, had to prove to herself that she _could_ —and if she couldn’t, she believed it strongly in her heart that Tyrion wouldn’t hold it against her, wouldn’t spread the word or mock her amongst the other ladies and lords, something she couldn't be certain of with someone else. Tyrion was the safest choice, the most comfortable. And there was no use in putting it off, for they could all die in a month, die and be reanimated as soldiers in the army of the dead.

Slowly, Sansa removed her jewelry and her belt, placing them one after another onto the table next to their abandoned glasses of wine. She almost felt the urge to take another sip of hers but refrained; she could still feel the vague haziness of the two glasses she’d already drank, and though she hadn’t lied to Tyrion—she wasn’t _drunk_ —she was sure that the wine she’d consumed had contributed to her confidence.

She removed her dress next, but she wore another, lighter slip dress beneath—it was a comfortable barrier between the more abrasive fabric of her dress and her flesh and also a necessity in the cold weather. She stopped then, in just her slip and underthings, hazarding another glance at Tyrion. He stood in front of the fire, still, and Sansa watched him for a moment, wondering if he truly understood what she was asking of him. Wondering if he understood the trust she was placing in him by asking. She had a strong suspicion that he did.

Sansa moved up behind Tyrion and placed her hand on his shoulder—and only then did Tyrion turn around to look at her. He gave her a smile, small but reassuring, before taking her hand and leading her toward the bed. Sansa let Tyrion lead her, sliding onto the bed and watching Tyrion climb up onto the mattress with much less grace—and she couldn’t help but smile slightly, endeared by the sight of him. Tyrion slid up next to her, gently pushing a wisp of hair away from her face.

“The moment you tell me to stop, I will,” he reassured her quietly before a smile quirked onto his features. “Or you can always toss me off the bed if you’d like. I’m not terribly heavy.”

Sansa laughed, any tension she was feeling falling away—and she supposed that must have been Tyrion’s aim in making a joke at such a moment. She nodded silently in understanding and then he kissed her again, pressing her firmly against the furs and pillows, his tongue guiding itself gently into her mouth once more. Her slip bared her neck and part of her chest, and Tyrion took advantage of that fact, his fingers tracing along her revealed skin, a gentle caress. It was so different than anything Ramsay had ever done to her, soft where Ramsay had been rough, intent on causing pain.

Sansa tried forcibly to push the memory away; it was not serving her in that moment. Instead, she let herself fall into the feeling of being gently kissed, the feeling of Tyrion’s small but capable hands gently brushing her skin. It was with a tentative movement that his hand slid down, still over her slip, softly caressing her breasts through the fabric. The feeling was pleasant in a hazy sort of way, and she’d never realized that her _breasts_ could feel like that, an instrument of pleasure. She realized, suddenly, how lacking her knowledge was in things of this nature. She knew how children were made, knew from her early teen years that it would be her duty as a wife to spread her legs for her husband, but everything else…it was a mystery. Ramsay had only ever used her in one specific way; his sadism ran through everything he did, but his main aim had been to create an heir, and he’d had Theon as a vessel through which to channel many of the rest of his destructive urges.

Sansa shook that thought away again as Tyrion pulled away and looked at her questioningly. She wanted to fight back the memories, but despite her best efforts, they kept coming back without fail. Whatever Tyrion saw in her gaze must have been reassuring, though, because he turned his attention back to her chest, sliding his hand inside the layer of fabric and cupping her breast again, this time skin on skin. Tyrion looked at her once more, perhaps waiting to see if she’d protest, before he pulled the fabric away to reveal her bare breast to the air.

She should have been cold, but her body felt strangely flushed—and then Tyrion slid down so that he could kiss along her breast, lips feather-soft, before his mouth caught around her nipple. She let out a soft exhale of surprise—was this a thing adults _did_ in their bedchambers, and not just the act of a suckling infant?—but it felt superb, even when Tyrion introduced the slightest scrape of teeth against the hardened nub. She had a fleeting thought, that Tyrion had slept with many whores, that he likely knew every _flavor_ of sexual perversion, though she found herself strangely unbothered by that fact. Winter had come, the army of the dead was nearly upon them, and those little things suddenly seemed not to matter.

As his mouth continued in its ministrations, Tyrion’s hand moved slowly down her body, tracing her stomach through the fabric, before settling on her pelvis. His fingers trailed down, finding the sensitive little nub above her folds and massaging in slow circles through her clothing. Even through two layers of fabric, she felt it acutely, gasped and then shuddered as a wave of pleasure rolled through her body.

Tyrion’s mouth pulled away from her breast and he chuckled slightly against her sternum, his beard scratching against her flesh as he turned his attentions to her other breast, mouth locking onto her nipple. The abandoned nipple was wet, cool against the air in the room, and she shivered and then groaned softly as he continued to rub her between her legs, lips and tongue and teeth teasing her other nipple to hardness.

Sansa didn’t know how long they continued in that holding pattern, him kissing and sucking at her breasts and rubbing her most sensitive parts all the while, but the wetness between her legs was unparalleled by anything she’d ever felt. She’d had dreams before, naughty dreams and fantasies and had even tried touching herself, but it had never been like _this_ —she had never been wet and hot and aching like this, desperate for something even she wasn’t certain of.

When he finally moved down her body, sliding the hem of her dress up her thighs, she almost groaned in relief, thinking that she might let him do _anything_ to her at that moment, wondering why she’d never let him, those years ago in King’s Landing. She hadn’t known that her body was capable of those kinds of sensations, and he’d barely touched her, and mostly through her clothing. She didn’t fight or flinch when he moved to remove her underclothes, nodding breathlessly as he looked up at her for confirmation.

She thought he’d unfasten his trousers, then, move to take her—but instead, he positioned himself between her legs and slipped his head under the hem of her slip, still barely protecting her modesty. Before she had a chance to wonder what he was doing, she felt the graze of his beard against her thighs and then a warm, focused wetness in the same place he’d been rubbing.

Without even noticing, Sansa released a loud moan of surprise and unexpected pleasure—and she threw a hand over her mouth immediately, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. Winterfell was filled with so many people, then, and anyone walking through the halls could hear her unabashed pleasure as what was unmistakably Tyrion’s _tongue_ began to lave over the sensitive mound of flesh before dipping down, between her folds. She hadn’t known, hadn’t even _thought_ that this was a thing that people would want to do to each other. It seemed so unsanitary, so very out of the realm of the ordinary, but Tyrion’s tongue was sliding all over her most private parts with enthusiasm and it felt so indescribably _blissful_.

Hand still clamped over her mouth, she rolled her hips slightly, unable to help herself. Her body’s own slickness mingled with the wetness of Tyrion’s mouth made her feel positively debauched, wetness soaking through her slip, into the furs beneath them. Tyrion’s head was beneath her dress, and Sansa couldn’t even imagine what this would be like if she could _see_ him, didn’t know if that would make it better or worse. Instead of wondering, she closed her eyes and submitted to the sensations as his tongue returned to that one spot with a renewed assault, circling and probing until she was nearly screaming and sobbing with overstimulation before dipping back down again and sliding _inside_ her.

She thought of Ramsay for only a fleeting moment before a wave of cresting pleasure pushed that away, because this gentle probing was so _different_ than anything she’d experienced before, tender and soft but overwhelming in its pleasure. She felt something building inside her, a sensation she’d never felt before—and she almost sobbed when it disappeared all of a sudden and Tyrion flipped back her skirt, lifting his head to look at her.

Sansa felt positively _shameless_ , then, looking down at Tyrion’s face between her legs, although that didn’t diminish her desire in the slightest. His face was slightly flushed, too, his beard obviously wet with her juices, but he didn’t look at all embarrassed or ashamed by it. Sansa flushed deeply at the thought of precisely what he’d been doing to get so thoroughly soaked.

“We won’t make any babies this way,” she croaked out after a moment—and she’d meant it as a joke, but she felt another wave of embarrassment as she watched a moment of panic fly behind his eyes before he seemed to remember where this whole thing had started, from her fear that she’d never be able to be intimate enough with another man to make children. He chuckled softly.

“We aren’t making any babies right now, My Lady,” he assured her with a wicked smirk, and then he dove down between her legs with a renewed fervor, using his fingers then to spread her open so he could spear his tongue inside her, in and out. Sansa whimpered, her chest feeling tight with an unknown pressure, her body tense as if awaiting _something_. And then his tongue came back up, relentless as it speared and traced that sensitive spot—and then Sansa felt it, felt her body shuddering and whiteness exploding behind her eyes. She couldn’t hold back a moan that time, and it sounded breathless and so totally wrecked that she almost didn’t recognize it as her own voice as she shuddered and gasped and seemed to lose total control over her body.

Tyrion didn’t pull back, not until she fell limp against the furs, though he continued to stroke her thighs in an absent, soothing way. It took a minute for her to remember how to breathe properly again, her heart fluttering like an insect’s wings in her chest, another minute for her to look down at him, kneeling between her legs and touching her softly.

She stared at him for a beat, not certain how she felt; she hadn’t known that her body was capable of such pleasure, hadn’t known that a man could enjoy doing such a thing. But it was clear that Tyrion _had_ ; the bulge in his trousers was unmistakable, and though Sansa wasn’t the most well-versed in matters sexual, even _she_ was aware of what that meant. She exhaled gently.

“Would you like…?”

She trailed off, as she had before, counting on Tyrion to be perceptive and intelligent as he’d always been. Tyrion looked down his body, as if he’d just belatedly remembered its urgent call. He looked up at her again.

“I don’t believe it would be a good idea for us to do that today,” he told her softly—and Sansa almost wanted to challenge him on that fact, citing the possible end of the world as they knew it, but she was surprised that she felt _relieved_ at the proclamation. She wasn’t truly prepared for that—for that _activity_ that could make babies—and Tyrion had seen it in her, plain as day. Sansa bit her lip nervously.

“Is there…something else I could do for you?” she asked then, tentatively. It had become abundantly clear that her understanding of the varieties of ways that sexual pleasure could be given and received were devastatingly limited, but Tyrion obviously knew much more, likely every possibility and permutation of sexual pleasure available in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond. She wondered if he’d ask her to pleasure him with her mouth, as he’d done to her; she found the idea overwhelming and vaguely disquieting.

Tyrion looked fairly unsettled, although not nearly as overwhelmed as she felt, before he moved wordlessly across the bed, stopping beside her. It was as though Sansa having drawn attention to his own need had caused him to suddenly recall it and feel its intensity—and his hands shook slightly as he unlaced his trousers, revealing himself to her.

She’d perhaps expected him to be more proportional, although she had no idea what the proper size was for a man’s privates was. But it was certainly larger than she’d expected, rigid and flushed pink and standing at attention. Sansa felt a surge of confidence at that—the realization that touching, kissing, and licking _her_ was what had done this to him—and she sat up next to him, giving him a slightly helpless look.

“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed quietly, unable to keep her eyes off the length of him. She looked up, meeting his gaze. “Show me?”

Tyrion released a little sound in the back of his throat, one that sounded like desperation and arousal.

“Lady Sansa, you will surely be the death of me,” he breathed slowly, although there was no malice in his words as he said it. He reached over and grasped her hand gently, and she let him guide her fingers onto him. He wrapped his hand around hers, guiding her fingers to clasp him tightly—and his flesh was warm and silky, much more so than she’d have thought.

“Like this,” he said quietly as he guided her to stroke, up and down his length. His hand remained clasped over hers, so that he was effectively stroking himself using her hand, and Sansa watched in fascination as they worked together at the task. After a long minute, he removed his hand, seeming to trust her to do it on her own—and with a tentative smile, she began to move her hand in long, even movements.

His answering groan was enough of a reassurance that she was doing something right, and Sansa found herself fascinated—fascinated by the odd texture of him in her hand, the way his eyes closed and his mouth opened slightly as he sighed, letting her please him. Sansa sped up the movements of her hand a little—and he hissed softly, obviously a sound of discomfort. She stopped abruptly.

“Have I…done something wrong?” she asked softly after a moment, jerking her hand away in soft horror. Tyrion’s eyes opened and he shook his head slowly, his gaze dark and slightly glassy.

“No, My Lady,” he assured her with a soft smile. “But these things usually work better with a little oil.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the table beside the bed, and she turned her head, seeing a bottle on the nightstand. She recalled having found a similar one once, beside Robb’s bed…and Sansa groaned at the memory, at the realization of what her brother had been doing with it.

Banishing that thought and any darkness of embarrassment that would come with it, she turned over, intent on giving Tyrion pleasure the same way he’d given it to her. She grasped the vial in her hand and pulled out the stopper—and although Tyrion hadn’t given her explicit instructions, it was clear enough what he meant her to do then. She poured some into her hand, shuddering a little at the cool, slick texture of it before replacing the vial and turning back to Tyrion.

“Lie back,” she told him, feeling slightly more confident—and he did, his hardness standing up proudly as she turned onto her side and took him into her hand again, this time slick with oil. He shivered at first as the cool wetness touched his flesh, but he seemed to forget that as Sansa began to move her hand again, just like he’d showed her. Tyrion had been right; the oil helped things along nicely, allowed her to move with less resistance. Tyrion sank into it immediately, eyes falling closed with a quiet sigh.

She sped her movements, and Tyrion released another soft sound—and she actually _felt_ his hardness twitch beneath her fingers, as if fighting to become even _more_ interested in the proceedings. Sansa felt a strange sense of power and pride, then, knowing that she was the one doing this to him, that his body was responding to _her_ and that this was entirely under her control.

On impulse, she leaned down and kissed him as she continued to stroke—and he let out a surprised exclamation against her mouth. She kissed him the same way he’d kissed her earlier, but she wasn’t as slow or careful as he had been, and he seemed not displeased by the development. He groaned against her mouth, and his hands moved up to touch her for a second before he seemed to rethink it, dropping his hands to the furs yet again.

Without thinking about it too much, she reached up and buried her other hand in his untamed curls, wanting to feel them against her fingers—and he sighed and began thrusting his hips up to meet her movements, seeming to fight for more sensation. And it struck her again, that feeling of control, the realization that she could stop and walk away and leave him wanting if she so desired, that he couldn’t force her to do anything. Because, as Tyrion had so astutely pointed out, he wasn’t terribly heavy and she could easily throw him off.

But Sansa found that she _didn’t_ want to stop—she wanted to make Tyrion come apart under her the same way she had come apart under him, wanted to see him shudder and cry out and lose control. Sansa broke the kiss, pulling back to look down at him. He opened his eyes, and the blacks of his eyes had almost overtaken the color completely, and his lips were red and swollen and his skin was flushed, and she wondered if this was how she’d looked, when he’d gazed upon her.

Tyrion’s eyes fluttered shut once again, and she tightened her grip on him a little, wondering if it was too much, wondering if she’d bridged the gap from pleasure to pain—but he let out a little moan that was all encouragement, so she continued to move her hand up and down his length. Her wrist was beginning to ache and the slickness between her flesh and his felt strange and almost unwelcome, but she had no desire to stop. She still felt wet and slick herself, from where he’d touched and licked her, and suddenly, the idea of that—the idea of him sliding inside her—didn’t feel nearly as overwhelming as it once had.

Sansa buried her face against Tyrion’s neck and released a little moan of her own at the thought—and Tyrion groaned loudly in response, as if bolstered on by the sound. His fingers were clenched into fists, his face scrunched up tight, almost seeming as though he was in pain. She wondered for a moment if she’d done something wrong again, but then she remembered the feeling she had before all her pleasure had crested, the feeling of tightness and anticipation, and she pulled back to see him properly, speeding up her strokes yet again.

Tyrion’s hands clenched further, tighter still, as he let out a breathy, broken sound and his body trembled. Long spurts of thick, white fluid burst forth from his erect length, staining his shirt, and Sansa watched in muted fascination as a thousand tiny expressions passed over his face before he fell back against the sheets, breathing hard.

She fell back next to him and released him, feeling strangely accomplished. Her hand was still slick with oil intermingled with his seed, her slip and the insides of her thighs soaked with her own arousal. It was messy and awkward and still she felt a sense of glee and triumph so strong she began to laugh softly. Still mostly boneless against the bed, Tyrion turned his head vaguely, cracking one eye open—and as he saw her, he began to laugh, too, which only seemed to bolster her on. And her increased mirth seemed to feed back into Tyrion’s, until they were both laughing so hard that tears were streaming from their eyes and Sansa was struggling to pull in breaths.

It took a few minutes for both of them to calm down, and even then, Sansa had to fight to bring her breathing back to normal. Everything was ridiculous and overwhelming, succession and politics and the threat of impending death, but for a moment, everything seemed blissfully _fine_. When Sansa was finally confident enough that she could speak without bursting into another unexpected bout of giggles, she turned onto her side, placing a soft kiss on Tyrion’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she told him sincerely, hoping she could put everything she was feeling, all the gratitude and elation and relief, into those two words. She wasn’t certain if she succeeded, but still, she couldn’t help but feel that Tyrion understood. He gave her a quiet, slightly sleepy smile in response, and she smiled back.

“Unfortunately, I never learned whether I can complete the act that would allow me to conceive children,” Sansa pointed out after a moment. She meant it to be a joke, somewhat lighthearted, but as soon as she said it, it felt like more, and she wasn’t certain if she meant that. If the war ended and they both came out the other side alive, would she want to marry Tyrion again, have children with him? Would _he_ want that? She wasn’t sure.

Thankfully, though, Tyrion seemed too sated to read too much into the words.

“Perhaps we can explore that avenue another time,” he murmured, and Sansa smiled, strangely sure that there would _be_ another time.  



	6. JAIME

Jaime left the war room and wandered for awhile, not quite sure what to do with himself. He’d been at Winterfell for barely two weeks, but he’d already gotten used to the flow of things there, his daily routine. Every morning, they’d come together in the war room for an update from Brandon Stark about the movements of the army of the dead—and discuss their troop levels, the amount of weapons they had at their disposal, how soon they’d be expected to face the enemy they all most feared.

Jaime didn’t know if they all had a separate briefing, without him, about Cersei. He suspected that they did, that while Bran was watching the army of the dead, he was also watching Cersei and Euron and the Golden Company. He suspected that they had strategies for that, too, but he wouldn’t have shared those strategies with him either, had he been in their place.

The afternoons were usually taken up with training, and it was an uncommonly interesting position he found himself in, as a fighter and military commander. The fighting style and tactics of most Westerosi armies were fairly similar, but both of Daenerys’ armies from Essos were a world apart from that, and all three armies had much to teach each other. Jaime had watched in stunned disbelief the first time he’d seen the Dothraki army shoot arrows with perfect aim while standing on horseback, and time had not dulled that awe, not in the slightest. The Unsullied moved with a single-mindedness that spoke strongly of their training, something that the scattered bunch of Westerosi soldiers they had at their disposal couldn’t hope to match, not in the time they had. And then there were the wildlings from north of the Wall, whose tactics were perhaps most disorganized—and yet most brutal.

But that day, they’d broken hours earlier than usual, everyone likely still stunned at the revelations that Bran Stark had laid upon them. The boy was a mystery, a conundrum unlike any Jaime had faced before. He hadn’t known that the boy was alive, and he wondered, in retrospect, if that knowledge would have been enough to discourage him from marching to Winterfell. He’d already been wary that they’d kill him on the spot when he arrived, suspecting him of being a spy sent by his sister, and when he’d found out the boy was alive with the kinds of powers he had, he’d been even more certain of it. Though he’d been told that Bran hadn’t remembered what had happened right after he’d woken in the aftermath of his fall, Jaime was more than certain that Bran knew the truth now, that there was no way he hadn’t _seen_ it.

And yet the youngest Stark had never mentioned it, at least not in his presence. He wondered if Bran had mentioned it to anyone, even his own family. He suspected not, for he was certain he’d have found himself at the receiving end of _someone’s_ sword if his actions all those years ago had come to light. In fact, Bran had been the one who had insisted he stay, insisted that he could be trusted. And if Jaime had ever had any intention of betraying them, it would have left him after one look at those cold, all-knowing eyes. If Jaime betrayed them, he had no doubt that Bran would be able to uncover it before long, and that truly _would_ be the end of him.

But still, Jaime avoided the boy as best he could. Perhaps he was a coward, but he couldn’t stand to be confronted by what he’d done. All those years ago, he hadn’t felt guilt about it, hadn’t felt anything but fear that the boy would wake up and speak about what he’d seen, what he’d experienced. Jaime wondered at how much he had changed since then, could barely recognize that man as the man he had once been. He’d once been able to do things like that without remorse, but trying to be what Cersei had wanted him to be had begun to feel increasingly like putting on a skin that didn’t fit anymore.

Because she’d been in the castle, playing politics in a land of lions and vipers, dealing with people even worse than herself. Letting everything they’d done reflect back upon her like a mirror, molding her into an even crueler, more heartless version of the woman she’d always been. And while she’d been in that world, Jaime had been dipping in and out of it, seeing the world outside the intrigues of King’s Landing. Seeing people like Catelyn Stark, who would release her enemy for the barest _hope_ that she’d see her children alive again; like Brienne of Tarth, whose loyalty and honor was unparalleled by any he’d ever met. From holding Myrcella in his arms, her soft confessions that she was glad that he was her father…and every time he’d come back from that and into his sister’s world, it all seemed more untenable, more unacceptable.

He wondered which one of them had changed. Had Cersei been this ruthless, this awful from the beginning and he’d just been unable to see it, being surrounded by it such as he had? Or had she changed each moment as more power fell to her, as King Robert and their father had died and she’d been able to implement her schemes unchallenged and unchecked? He’d started to see it with increasing certainty when he’d returned to King’s Landing from Riverrun, knowing that his sister’s plots had led to the death of their son. She tried to blame everyone but herself for Tommen’s death, but Jaime had seen the truth. He had seen the way Cersei’s petty revenge schemes, her unwillingness to let anyone else have power, hadn’t allowed her to see how her actions would affect others—even their own _son_ , their last living child.

He’d killed the Mad King for threatening to do exactly what Cersei had done, for wanting to kill so many of their own citizens with fire. He had killed the man for _less_ than what she’d done—though he had no doubts that if he hadn’t stopped that King, the results could have been far more brutal.

Jaime wandered out the gates of Winterfell, searching for quiet. It was always too loud in Winterfell, too many people in too small a space, and that was the only way he’d ever experienced the place. Because the last time he’d been there, King Robert had brought them and an entire entourage from King’s Landing, and it had been the same way, all hustle and bustle as they tried to accommodate the sheer amount of bodies and all of the various _needs_ that came along with that. He wondered, absently, what Wintefell would be like without that, wondered how calm and serene it might have otherwise been at that moment, with snow falling around them, the calm quiet that came along with winter.

The snowfall was light enough that it wasn’t a deterrent to walking outside—not even to Jaime, as unaccustomed as he was to the cold. Even so, it seemed prudent to him, after a moment, to take shelter beneath the trees, so he walked toward the woods silently. Down the hill, he could just see the edges of the army encampment, and he felt for them, sleeping nightly in tents and training even in the heaviest of snowfalls. As a commander, Jaime would never have advocated for taking on a military campaign in winter, not if they had any other choice in the matter. But that was the crux of it, since they _did_ have another choice, but that choice was certain death for all of them—and the rest of the world besides.

Jaime walked slowly between the trees, careful not to go too far. The path, if there had ever been one, had already been covered over by the snow that had fallen onto the branches which had then buckled under the weight, and Jaime was conscious of the fact that he’d surely die were he to become lost in the woods in the snow.

And suddenly, Jaime heard a noise off to his left—and he turned to it in an instant, his good hand moving immediately to the hilt of his sword, ready to draw at any sign of danger. He didn’t know what he might find in the woods near Winterfell, didn’t know what kind of dangerous people or animals might be about. He took a few more quiet steps, ready to investigate—and as he came around a large tree, he stopped and lowered his hand with a shake of his head, letting out a sigh of relief.

Jon Snow sat with his back against a large tree, sheltered by its branches from the falling snow. His direwolf lay nestled against his side, seeming to huddle near him to conserve both of their warmth. The wolf’s eerie red eyes started at Jaime, searchingly, before it seemed to decide that Jaime wasn’t a threat and settled its head back down. Jon eyed Jaime with a similar expression before shaking his head.

“Did someone send you out here to find me?” Jon asked in a very accusatory tone, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Because I will not have _you_ giving me advice. Not about this.”

Jaime eyed the other man, a relative stranger to him, with confusion for a long few seconds before he realized the precise meaning of Jon’s words. He certainly hadn’t gone out there to find Jon—or Aegon, or whatever in seven hells the man’s name was. He’d gone out there for the same reason that Jon probably had, to get some peace from all the chaos at Winterfell. He wondered, too, why Jon would have thought that someone would have sent _him_ to give him advice—before it struck him, suddenly. There was likely no one there who had been in a situation quite as similar as the two of them had; the difference was that he’d _known_ he’d created a child, four times over, with his own blood. Jaime stopped at a tree a few feet from where Jon sat.

“Perhaps you should,” he remarked, wondering if perhaps the other man would kill him for introducing himself into the whole thing. This was as far from his business as almost anything could possibly be—except that he’d perhaps been the first to see it, having seen the same thing in his own sister not long before. “Perhaps I can see the whole matter more clearly than you can.”

Jon gave him a steely glare before he seemed to lose the drive to do even that; he sighed and lowered his gaze, running his fingers over the direwolf’s fur, and the animal turned into his touch. It struck Jaime, then, the power that lay in this man’s veins, a vicious wolf and a vicious dragon both under his thrall. It was the kind of power Jaime’s own father and sister would have killed for but never could have had.

Jaime moved tentatively to sit opposite of Jon, the snow cool against his backside, though the leather he wore kept the wet away. He wasn’t certain why he stayed, and Jon didn’t tell him to leave again, though he remained silent. They both sat there for a long time, not speaking, before Jon finally opened his mouth.

“May I ask you a personal question, Ser Jaime?” he prefaced after a moment, and Jaime looked up at him, searching his features to try to guess what might be on his mind. Jon’s gaze gave nothing away, but considering how the encounter had started, Jaime had a vague idea what the other man might want to discuss. After a pause for consideration, Jaime nodded slowly.

Jon shifted and hesitated, as if trying to figure out exactly how to phrase his question. After another pause, he finally spoke.

“Cersei’s children…all three of them were yours?” he finally inquired.

Jaime sat there for a moment, considering his response. It was a secret that they’d been keeping for so long—but one that seemed to have become less and less hidden as the time had gone on. And with Cersei’s behavior the prior few months, flaunting their relationship for castle staff to see, insisting that she’d tell everyone the truth about him being the father of her unborn child…it seemed folly, almost, to lie about that fact anymore.

“Yes,” he answered finally, simply, but then Jon was staring at him, pleading, almost desperate for more information. So Jaime took a deep breath and elaborated. “All three of them. Although I occasionally wondered if Tommen and Myrcella came from us at all. They were too…good and kind. Better than either of us, although we were the ones who made them.”

They fell silent again, Jon averting his eyes, turning instead to observe the trees around them. Jaime followed his gaze, and as they watched, a large pile of snow fell to the ground, having become too heavy for the branch that had been holding it. There was a metaphor in there, Jaime was sure, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Finally, Jon turned back to him.

“Do you think having children with someone of your own blood creates madness?” he inquired finally.

Jaime leaned back against the tree, wondering at the words. It wasn’t that he’d never thought of the question before—in fact, most of the realm had likely considered it at some time or another, but the question was exceedingly relevant to his own life. He’d killed the Mad King, a man who had been the product of a union between siblings; his own union with his sister had created Joffrey, and as the boy had grown, Jaime had lain awake in bed at night sometimes, unable to sleep for the fear that he and Cersei had created a monster, their own little Mad King. He’d lain awake and wondered if he’d have to become a Kingslayer twice over. He didn’t know if he could have done it, if he could have killed his own blood—not back then.

But what he’d said to Jon before was true; Tommen and Myrcella had been simply too pure, too good for him to have any certainty of it. And yet, he still couldn’t help but wonder if it _was_ the cause—but that maybe it was true that the madness was more of a probability than a certainty. Or, perhaps, if Tommen and Myrcella had lived longer…perhaps they would have been mad, too. After all, King Aerys hadn’t always been mad, not from the start. Jaime sighed.

“I don’t know,” he admitted slowly, for it was a question he was unable to answer, no matter how long he tortured himself over it. “Maybe it does.”

Jon pursed his lips into a tight frown, looking away again—and most certainly, he was thinking of his own child, of whether he may have accidentally created that same kind of monster without even knowing it. He and Daenerys weren’t siblings, certainly—but the Targaryens had married within their family for so many generations that there was a good chance that the amount of common blood the two shared would make them as close as siblings. Jaime frowned as well before resolving to speak again.

“Or maybe the thing that breeds madness is power,” Jaime murmured—and Jon’s gaze snapped back to meet his, obviously not having expected him to speak again. Because Jaime had considered this too, and it seemed increasingly relevant as he watched Cersei’s already tenuous grip on reality teeter with every scrap of power she amassed. “Maybe being told from a young age that you’ll have everything, control everything…maybe _that’s_ what creates madness. Maybe it’s not anything to do with blood at all.”

Jon’s frown stayed in place at the words, but his expression turned more pensive, then, and Jaime wondered what he was thinking. Perhaps about his not-father, Ned Stark—a man who’d never thought he’d inherit Winterfell and the wardenship of the North, a man who’d spent his childhood knowing that it would go to his brother until his brother had been killed by the Mad King himself. Perhaps of Tommen, another who’d thought his brother had been destined to rule and not him. Or perhaps Jon thought of himself, a man who had been raised all his life being told that he was _less_ , only to find he was, by birthright, actually greater than any of the men who surrounded him.

“What do _you_ think?” Jon asked him finally, his tone desperately serious, as though he believed for some reason that Jaime’s opinion on the matter held weight. Jaime sat back against the trunk of the tree again, wondering how to answer.

“I think,” he began after a beat, “that all of us have the capacity for madness. Daenerys has it, and I think you can see that. The important part, the part that separates Daenerys from Cersei, is that Daenerys chooses to surround herself with people who will check her worst impulses, will tell her when she’s wrong. She’ll even listen to the advice of the brother of her sworn enemy. Cersei listens to no one but herself—and those who will validate her beliefs.”

Jon stared at him with serious eyes, then, as if reevaluating everything he’d known. Jaime almost flinched away from the attention, but he forced himself to hold the other man’s gaze.

“Will you go back to her?” Jon asked tentatively, as if unsure whether it was his place to ask. “When the war is over?”

Jaime closed his eyes, then, unable to bear the scrutiny any longer. He felt, once more, the absolute terror and dismay he’d experienced the day he’d left King’s Landing, when he’d realized that he could no longer force himself to believe that his sister could be redeemed. He couldn’t help but contrast that with the memory of her as a child, the way she’d told him that she loved him, the way she’d said that even if she became Queen one day, she’d always love him best of all. She’d been the one who had taken him to bed the first time, when they’d still been youths of thirteen—and Jaime had to wonder if she’d always seen him as that, a possession, a thing to be controlled and used. If nothing else, Cersei had certainly been correct about one thing: in many ways, Jaime _was_ the stupidest Lannister.

Opening his eyes slowly, Jaime shook his head.

“I can’t stand beside her any longer and condone what she does,” he admitted gently. Jon nodded solemnly, as if Jaime had just confirmed something he’d already suspected.

“What about your child?”

Jaime sucked in a breath, feeling overwhelmed by the question. But that had been the crux of it, hadn’t it? It had been, in fact, the start to their whole conversation. Two unborn children, one on either side of a war. And it pained Jaime to think about, because he still grieved the loss of his children, who he had loved desperately despite everything.

“I think the child is as lost to me as she is,” he admitted finally, though it pained him to say it. He knew that Cersei couldn't be redeemed, that as long as she lived, those who supported her would have someone to rally behind. And if her child lived, the same could be said of the child.

“You understand…if we win this fight, your sister has to die. There’s no other way.”

Jaime appreciated the way that Jon didn’t dance around the subject. Because if there was anything that Jaime had learned, it was the consequences of politics and war, and he’d known it as well as anyone. And although it pained him, filled his chest with gentle dismay, part of him had begun to wonder whether he’d have to kill her himself.

“Yes, I understand that.”

Jaime was proud of how even his voice was, how little of his inner turmoil it conveyed.

“But if we can save your child, we will,” Jon said, his voice awash with conviction.

Jaime’s gaze shot up in surprise at the confident proclamation, unconsciously searching Jon’s expression for signs of deceit, something he’d grown uncomfortably used to doing with everyone he encountered. But he saw nothing but sharp certainty in the younger man’s dark gaze.

“The child is innocent,” Jon continued without prompting, sounding almost as though he was talking to himself more than to Jaime. “I will not be like the Baratheons or the Lannisters or the Boltons, murdering infants in their beds. And I wont let Daenerys be like that either. We have to be better than that—or else what is the fucking _point_?”

Jaime stared at Jon, not quite able to believe what he’d just heard. Because murdering all possible rivals to the throne was the way, had always been the _only_ way, as far as Jaime had ever known. Whether they were fully capable adults or helpless infants had never mattered. But, of course, Jon likely knew that better than anyone. He’d been shunned and mocked, called a bastard his whole life because of a king who wouldn’t hesitate to kill innocent children. Jaime wondered, fleetingly, what it would be like with Jon Snow on the Iron Throne, if the world would be better for it. Or if, a few generations down the line, it would be right back to business as usual.

“That’s very generous of you,” Jaime remarked finally, numbly. Jon pursed his lips and nodded before standing up, brushing snow off of his clothing.

“Don’t make me regret it,” Jon said sharply before he walked away, the white wolf following in his wake.


	7. JON

Jon slightly regretted his move to leave the forest and return to Winterfell, because as soon as he returned, all the peace he’d found there in the snowy forest was gone. He may have no longer been the King in the North, but he was still the Lord of Winterfell, and Sansa had disappeared somewhere hours ago. As soon as he walked through the gates, suddenly a thousand things needed his attention, everyone asking him to look over and make decisions about this and that, all of them blissfully unaware of the things that most desperately needed his attention, his decisions. His birthright, his child, his Queen.

But instead there were decisions on where to allocate new weapons, what rations to distribute to the soldiers, how much of the meager game that had been brought back needed to be salted and stored. They had already put people in positions to make these decisions by themselves, without his input, but no one seemed confident in their roles yet; it seemed everyone needed everything double-checked and verified by Jon or Sansa personally. He did manage to avoid the task of going to check their admittedly small cache of wildfire; Tyrion had had a pyromancer brought into Winterfell, and Jon considered Tyrion to have sole responsibility of oversight of its synthesis. He’d managed to pull a trick with wildfire once—and thankfully, he was fairly certain the Night King hadn’t been exchanging letters with Stannis in order to know to avoid it.

Jon managed to escape to his chambers not long before the evening meal. He usually tried to eat with the men whenever possible, following the example that Ned Stark had always set for them—but that night he felt rubbed raw, like he might snap at the first person who tried to capture his attention with any concern that wasn’t the child growing in Daenerys’ belly, so he ate alone in his rooms in between bouts of nervous pacing.

Eventually, Jon decided that there was no way around it, and he let himself out of his rooms, making his way toward Daenerys’. The feeling of nervous anticipation reminded him very much of that first night aboard the boat, when he’d gone to her cabin with a sense of longing and trepidation both. He knocked at the door to her chambers without preamble, not willing to give himself an excuse to lose courage.

Unlike that time on the ship, though, Daenerys didn’t answer her own door. Instead, the door opened to reveal Missandei, the unquestionably beautiful and intelligent former slave from the Isle of Naath. He _knew_ she was beautiful and intelligent, because he’d heard her speak, he had eyes, and enough of his men had shared their opinion of Daenerys’ advisor and translator—but Jon had never been able to spare her a look, not with Daenerys by her side.

Missandei, for her part, seemed fairly shocked to see Jon standing in front of her, though she opened the door wider, as if in reflex.

“My Lord—” she began, then stopped and cleared her throat. “Your Grace—” she tried again, seeming unsure of how to address him. Jon sympathized with her; he wasn’t quite sure who he was anymore either, and that wasn’t even taking into account his position in the line of succession. She cleared her throat again, glancing back into the room with a nervous movement before looking back at him.

“I’ll just leave you two alone,” was what she seemed to settle on finally, and she slipped past him with a surprising amount of grace for someone so flustered, leaving the door open for him in silent invitation. Jon couldn’t see Daenerys inside—the door not open wide enough to expose her to his gaze—but he hadn’t heard her protest, so he stepped inside, past the threshold, closing the door behind him quietly.

Daenerys was sleeping in Sansa’s old rooms, for Sansa had taken her parents’ and Jon had somehow found himself in Robb’s, which were larger and more comfortable than the ones in which he’d resided growing up, since Lady Catelyn had never deemed him deserving of anything equal to her trueborn Stark son. Jon couldn’t help but wonder, dimly, what the woman who had never loved him, never accepted him into her family, would have thought if she’d found out the truth. He wondered if she’d feel badly for how she’d treated him—or if she’d feel equally angry to know the danger her husband had put them all in simply by keeping Jon around.

There was a fire roaring in the grate, the chambers pleasantly warmer than the drafty hallway had been—and Jon looked around for a moment before he found Daenerys sitting up in bed, her body half covered with furs. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed her immediately, for his gaze seemed to almost always fall directly on her—even during the past week, when he’d been doing his best to ignore her completely. It didn’t help how striking she was, her silver hair bright and unique, even among the sheer number of people currently inside Winterfell and in its environs.

Even in what appeared to be her nightclothes, her hair let free of its many braids, she was undeniably beautiful to him; in fact, without all the hard pretense of her carefully-constructed appearance, she was more beautiful than ever. Her nightshirt was a light, powdery blue with a silver dragon embroidered upon the shoulder, the color making her look soft and vulnerable in a way most of the world never got the privilege to see.

Daenerys didn’t say anything, seeming to be waiting for him to speak first. Jon stopped a few feet from her bed, not willing to presume that she was willing to let him any closer. Not presuming that he had the _right_ any longer, not after everything that had happened.

“How are you feeling, Your Grace?”

It was easy to couch all his feelings behind the honorific, to keep it all to platitudes. It was the safest, least uncertain path, and Jon took it like a coward. The tiniest smile quirked at the corner of Daenerys’ face before it disappeared.

“Better,” she assured him, although her tone gave nothing away, no additional details other than that. But the fact that she was in bed, although he knew she wouldn’t normally retire for another few hours, told him enough.

“Have you eaten?” he couldn’t help but ask when she didn’t elaborate, remembering the soft way Missandei had chastised her earlier in the day. Jon knew little about pregnancy, but he did recall when Lady Catelyn had been pregnant with Rickon, recalled the way that she’d been dreadfully ill and pale for months, if only because it meant she had been more likely to take out her frustrations on him. The realization that Daenerys might be experiencing something of a similar sort—and that _he’d_ been the one to do it to her—made him feel a bit guilty.

This time, Daenerys did smile, although it was soft, sad.

“Yes,” she said gently, and this time she did elaborate. “The maester gave me something for the nausea. It’s helped tremendously.”

Jon felt the rhythm of his heart like the beat of a war drum, feeling almost as if it would burst out of his body. Because Tyrion had Missandei had seemed fairly convinced that the Queen was with child, but they hadn’t seen a maester about it; there was every chance they’d misinterpreted the situation. It hadn’t struck him until that moment, when she’d mentioned the maester, that this could all be some sort of misunderstanding. And suddenly, the idea that the child might not be real—that Daenerys might actually simply be _ill_ —made his stomach roil in an unexpected way. He hadn’t realized until then, until the moment it struck him that it might not be true, how desperately he _wanted_ the child to be real. He swallowed thickly.

“You’ve seen a maester?” he inquired, hoping that his voice sounded more controlled than he felt. “What did he say?”

Jon had a feeling that he hadn’t been able to keep his emotions out of his voice, because the look that Daenerys gave him was entirely too sympathetic.

“He shares the opinion that I’m with child,” she proclaimed finally. She said it much in the way she might announce something awful, as if she was telling him that the Night King had arrived weeks earlier than expected and they were all to perish without a fight. Jon forgot to breathe at first, his chest feeling too tight, before he felt a moment of relief.

He took a few tentative steps toward the edge of her bed before falling to his knees beside it, placing his hand on her belly without even thinking about it. There was absolutely no indication of a child growing in her womb; her abdomen was perfectly flat beneath his touch, but the knowledge that his child grew inside was enough. Daenerys reached down and grasped his hand, as though to pull it away, but she did not.

“Jon.”

She said his name the same way she’d affirmed the truth of her pregnancy, as if being led off a cliff into the sea, knowing that her death was certain. Jon looked up at her, wondering what he’d see in her light eyes—but they were steely and composed, giving nothing away. Her hair might have been unbraided, her clothing nearly unadorned—but she was the same cold, composed queen that he’d met in the throne room at Dragonstone, where she’d demanded he bend the knee without a hint of vulnerability in her gaze.

But after a long minute, she sighed, her gaze softening slightly.

“The witch may still have been correct,” she told him gently—and Jon wasn’t certain what she was talking about at first, until he remembered the conversation they’d had at the Dragon Pit. It seemed, somehow, as if that had happened a lifetime ago. “The child may not live to be born. Do not get attached.”

Jon felt unbearably sad at the words, remembered the same tired resignation with which she’d reminded him yet again that day that she couldn’t have children. He’d doubted her words then, and he’d been right—he certainly wasn’t about to take the word of a murdering witch from across the world then, either. Jon gave Daenerys a serious look.

“If we can’t believe in a better future, then what are we fighting for?”

It might have been a platitude, but Jon believed it wholeheartedly. He’d just found out that his whole existence had been a lie, that the father he’d known was not his father, though he still couldn’t help but think of his family all in the same terms he always had. Half his family had been slaughtered unjustly by their enemies and the other half had been beaten and crippled and _raped_ —and the moment Jon had found a sliver of happiness, a small bit of hope within all the darkness, the universe had tried to rip that from him as well. He couldn’t help but believe there was happiness on the other side—otherwise, he wasn’t sure he would have the energy to get up and fight every day, just for more of the same.

Daenerys averted her gaze, and for a second her mask slipped, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

“I can’t,” she admitted finally, her tone barely more than a whisper. “I can’t get my hopes up only to lose a child again.”

Jon felt another pang, a memory of all he’d lost—and it was followed by another wave of optimism, because he couldn't stand to let his thoughts give way to anything else. He grasped Daenerys’ hand tightly, and she turned to look at him, her gaze surprised but wary.

“Then I will believe enough for the both of us,” he told her sincerely.

Daenerys looked at Jon for a long time, as though she wasn’t certain anymore what to make of him. Jon wasn’t certain himself, not after the cascading revelations of the last week. She closed her eyes for a long minute, and when she opened them again, they were dry and filled with calm composure once more.

“I meant what I said, Jon,” she said seriously, her voice all regal command. “I will not marry someone who does not desire me. Not like this.”

Jon felt an ache in his chest at that; he remembered the feeling of daggers plunging into his body and suspected, for a fleeting moment, that this feeling must be _worse_. He closed his eyes, fighting back a burning sensation behind his own eyelids, before he opened them again.

“You think I don’t desire you?” Jon asked after a moment, and even _he_ could hear how much his voice shook. Daenerys’ gaze turned to him, sharp and inquisitive, and Jon looked away, unable to bear the scrutiny.

“You’re all I think about, all day and every day. I should be worrying about the Night King and the army of the dead, and instead all I can think about is how beautiful you look when I kiss you. All I can think about is how badly I want to do just what Euron Greyjoy said—to take you back to Dragonstone and hold you in my arms forever, even as the whole world collapses around us. All I can think about his how desperately I love you, how much I can’t imagine a life without you. No matter how badly I tell myself not to want it, I can’t make myself stop.”

A tear managed to escape Jon’s eye, and he rubbed it away furiously. The room was silent save for their breathing and the crackling of the fire; in the distance, the regular noises of Winterfell continued on.

Jon was surprised when, after a lengthy pause, Daenerys reached out and grasped his hand once again. He looked over at her blearily, feeling slightly drained by the confession.

“You may lose me yet,” she reminded him, ever the pragmatist. “I will still fight in this battle. We can’t afford to let Drogon stay behind, and I can’t let Drogon go without me. We might both fall in the battle. Even if I am with child, I won’t stay behind and cower beneath my sheets while I could help turn the tide of the war.”

Jon lowered his eyes again, feeling again as if his heart had been put in a vice; because he’d known that, of course, but hearing her say it and feeling the immediacy of the danger for her and their _child_ was almost too much for him to take. Jon took a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself; he’d expected it, but somehow it still felt like too much. He didn’t know how long he’d been looking away when he finally managed to raise his eyes to her again, but her expression remained cool and unperturbed.

“I know that,” he said finally, his tone gentle. “You wouldn’t be _you_ otherwise. You wouldn’t be the woman that I love. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to keep you and our child both safe.”

The look in her eyes was like another stab through his heart; he saw everything he felt reflected there, the same love and desire, the same fear, the same _hope_ , although for her it was half-hidden below the surface. He wanted to be disgusted, to have the self-control to keep his hands off of her forever—and part of him was, but that part of him grew smaller and smaller as he imagined the life they could have together, the world they wanted to build. After a few seconds, he couldn’t take it anymore; he practically lunged forward, capturing her lips in a ferocious kiss.

Jon had quickly learned that Daenerys never did anything halfway—certainly not making love, and this time was no exception. The moment his lips were on hers, her hand circled around his head, tangling in his curls and fisting itself there, grip so tight that it _hurt_. She kissed him back with an intensity that was almost bruising, and it felt like coming home. It seemed not just a week but a _lifetime_ since they had last kissed like this, and they both kissed like they had been drowning and were finally coming up for air.

The position was awkward; Jon was still kneeling beside Daenerys’ bed while she sat upright upon it, but then she was gripping at his clothing, and he understood the message, clumsily climbing onto the bed without ever breaking the kiss.

He straddled her body, more carefully than he might have before—and one hand found its way back to her abdomen, no more than a light touch. He still couldn’t believe that she carried a child within her— _their_ child—though he could see no evidence of it. For a fleeting moment, he imagined her body round and full with their child growing within her—and rather than dampen his lust, the thought only inflamed it. He’d once been terrified of getting a woman pregnant, terrified of creating another bastard like himself—but with the prospect of their probable marriage on the horizon, he allowed himself to think of it, to _revel_ in it, in the knowledge of what they’d managed to create together.

Jon pulled away finally, feeling lightheaded—and he rested his forehead against hers, both of them sucking in much-needed air. Her face was flushed and her eyes were closed, and she looked as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. Jon couldn’t believe, for a moment, that he’d ever considered giving this up for _anything_.

“It will be a few months yet, before you can feel anything,” Daenerys said suddenly, unprompted—and Jon was confused for a moment before he realized she was talking about his hand, still gently resting against her stomach. Because, of course, she’d been through this before, knew what to expect when he didn’t.

And it struck him, again, that she’d already birthed and lost a child, then lost another for his sake when Viserion had died beyond the Wall. It struck Jon again how in awe he was of this woman—her strength and determination even more than her beauty. But Jon didn’t say any of that aloud; there would be time, still, to say all that and more, but it didn’t seem the right moment, then. Instead, he leaned down and kissed her again, leaving behind the gentleness, the slight trepidation that had held him back and kissed her the way he knew she liked to be kissed. She was strong, and their _child_ would be strong, and for all that she had doubts about that, Jon had none.

Jon lowered his body a bit more firmly onto her smaller one, grinding his hips against hers, letting her feel his want for her, pressing against her through the gap in his tunic. Jon knew his actions had had the intended effect when she groaned against his lips, reaching down between them and grasping his hardness through his breeches. Her other hand moved up to the leather fastening of his cloak, trying futilely to undo it with just one hand—and after a moment, Jon took pity on her, breaking the kiss and sitting up enough to unfasten it for her, tossing it unceremoniously off the edge of the bed.

Both of them were breathing hard, and when Jon looked down at Daenerys, her gaze was all silent confidence; as soon as they’d fallen into bed together, she’d lost all pretense about desiring him, and she’d never been shy in expressing it or taking _exactly_ what she wanted from him. She grasped the outer leathers he wore, giving him a meaningful look.

“ _Off_ ,” she said, and Jon wasted no time, cursing how many layers he wore, how impractical it was for this. The gorget with the Stark direwolves came off first, Jon’s fingers scrabbling at the buckles to remove it. Daenerys didn’t move to help him, her hand remaining pressed against him through his breeches, having found its way through the gap in his leather tunic. The way she rubbed him, slowly and gently, didn’t help him focus on getting undressed any faster. He groaned as he managed to relieve himself of his leather tunic, then the layers beneath it, until his upper half was left bare.

He had no opportunity to be concerned about his scars, the way he still sometimes was despite how many times Daenerys had seen them, because she’d freed him from his breeches with a remarkable sense of ease, and just the feeling of her small, cool hand against the warm flesh of his cock was almost too much. He felt almost like an untouched virgin again, like the first time that Ygritte had laid a hand on him; it didn’t seem possible that, in the span of a week, he’d forgotten what it was like to be touched like that. But then again, it was the longest he and Daenerys had gone without touching each other since the first time.

Jon didn’t say anything of what was going through his head, but Daenerys seemed to sense it anyway; she grinned slyly at him, as though reveling in the power that she had over him, as she stroked the length of him with slow, teasing movements. Jon couldn’t help the shudder that went through him.

“I’d prefer you nude,” she proclaimed after a moment, a soft smile still gracing her features; and Jon couldn’t help but flush slightly, the way she used the same voice that she did when facing someone down from a throne. Jon slid off the bed just long enough to shed the rest of his clothes before he was atop her again, pushing her nightgown down enough to reveal her breasts. He kissed his way down her neck, cupping one breast in his hand as he took her nipple into his mouth. He laved his tongue over it for just a moment before adding his teeth, catching the hardened nub between them as she let out an appreciative gasp.

Jon couldn’t help but recall that he’d heard that a woman’s breasts would grow fuller when she was with child—and he imagined, for a moment, what Daenerys might look like a few months down the line, another life growing within her. He imagined it wasn’t strictly _proper_ to be so inflamed by the idea—but then, Jon decided that he was absolutely _done_ with worrying about what was proper. Instead, he turned his attention to her other breast, giving her just enough of the roughness that she liked, before she grabbed him and pulled their lips together once more.

Her kiss was fierce and demanding, just like the rest of her—and Daenerys pushed him backward without ever breaking from his lips, moving him off her body just enough for her to slide herself out from under the pile of furs so that she could straddle him instead. Only then did she break the kiss; straightening up enough to pull her nightclothes off in one swift movement, making it immediately clear that she wore nothing underneath.

Jon could barely contain himself at the sight of her, pushing himself up as much as he could manage with her astride him, trying to kiss whatever portion of her skin that he could reach. His lips ended up against her stomach, which suited him just fine—and Daenerys let out a half-exasperated chuckle before pushing him down, unresisting, against the pillows.

Jon grasped her hips slightly, trying to move her just enough so that they could kiss again—but her hand pressed against his chest, gentle yet firm enough to leave no doubt that she expected the wordless directive to be followed. Jon stayed where he was as Daenerys looked down at him, her gaze suddenly steely and serious once again. Jon’s brow furrowed at the sudden change in mood.

“Daenerys?” he ventured hesitantly

“Swear to me that whatever second thoughts you were having about this are in the past,” she said seriously, her tone a sharp contrast from the playfulness with which she’d suggested he remove his clothing just minutes before. “Swear that you aren’t just doing this out of some sense of duty to our child. If that’s what you’re doing, right now is your last chance to get up and walk away. We can keep our military alliance and figure out the political ramifications after the army of the dead is defeated.”

For a few long seconds, Jon could do nothing but stare at Daenerys in disbelief. It was somehow impossible to reconcile the fact that this conversation could be happening when they were both nude, the Queen straddling his torso and his cock still standing proudly at attention, not even slightly dissuaded by the shift in mood. But Jon also recognized this for what it was—Daenerys’ attempt to remain strong and in control of the situation, to protect herself from any more heartbreak. It was sometimes difficult to remember that Daenerys had _any_ weaknesses because she always projected such an air of strength.

Jon tried to sit up again.

“Daenerys—” he started, but her hand pressed hard against his chest yet again, forcing him to lay back down. She gave him a meaningful stare, and Jon got the message quickly and moved to answer her instead.

“I don’t want to walk away,” he managed to say finally—and it was true. Even when he’d first found out, when he’d been so determined to keep his distance, he hadn’t _wanted_ to stay away. He’d wanted to be with her every chance that they could get, even though part of him remained certain that it was wrong. It was simply that he’d gotten better and better at ignoring that part.

Daenerys’ look didn’t falter, signaling quite clearly that she wasn’t convinced by his words. Jon wasn’t sure how she could be so perfectly composed, even naked with her hair loose and flowing around her face while Jon felt completely out of his comfort zone.

“I’m your _aunt_ ,” she reminded him then, coldly. “Your father was my brother.”

The words stung in some strange way as he remembered when he’d protested that fact in the face of her utter indifference over it. He felt almost guilty about his initial reaction, although it seemed almost absurd to feel so. Jon swallowed thickly, wondering to himself that even as she sat there above him, laying the facts out so clearly, it did nothing to dissuade the excitement of his flesh.

“I know,” he murmured quietly, his tone resigned. “I _know_ , and I can’t make myself give you up. I don’t even want to.”

The room became utterly silent all of a sudden, and all Jon could hear was the mingling sounds of his breath with hers. Daenerys exhaled slowly, deliberately.

“Swear to me, Jon, or go,” she repeated. “Because if I find out you’re lying to me, you won’t have another chance to walk away.”

The implicit threat behind her words should have been frightening— _was_ frightening, except that it was also somehow strangely arousing, Daenerys towering over him and threatening him. There were, Jon reflected, possibly things about his desires that were far more questionable than that to continue to be with Daenerys, despite knowing her relation to him.

“I swear it,” Jon said slowly, and it was so much easier to say that than it had been to say call her _my Queen_ for the first time. Daenerys didn’t move, just continued to look down at him with an unflinching gaze—but there was something searching in it, then, as if she was trying to determine whether or not he was lying.

Whatever she’d seen in his eyes must have convinced her, because with a sharp nod, she began to move. Jon didn’t even have time to question what she was doing, because a moment later, he felt her hand around the base of his cock, still stubbornly erect despite the somber tone of the conversation—and without preamble, she lifted herself up and guided his length inside of her.

Jon could do nothing but groan in muted surprise at the familiar feeling of warm wetness around his cock. His hands went back to her hips, then, fighting for something to do—for some semblance of control, perhaps, some desperate need to guide her, although she needed no guidance. Daenerys knew exactly what she wanted, exactly how to move against him—and once she’d managed to lower herself all the way with only a slight hint of a grimace, she began to roll her hips in a tantalizing rhythm. Her movements were like a dance, one whose steps Jon had somehow forgotten, and he felt helpless to do anything other than let himself melt into it, the feeling of sliding slowly in and out of her body.

She braced her weight against his chest, giving herself enough leverage to ride him—and after a moment, he could do nothing to reign in his own eagerness, his own desperation at the feel of being inside her. He ground back up against her, helplessly, and her answering moans were indication enough that she didn’t mind.

This was different than sex had ever been with them—not anything in the act itself, but in how tenuous Jon’s control was, how utterly untethered he felt. He felt, embarrassingly, as though he might spill himself inside her within seconds, and the anchoring knowledge of _it doesn’t matter, because she’s already full with your child_ didn’t do anything to dissuade his lust. He reached for her with whatever feeble control he could muster, making an uncoordinated attempt to rub her while she rode him, hoping to make her climax first.

It took every bit of control that Jon had in him to hold himself back at her appreciative moan; he rubbed her and let his eyes fall closed, afraid that if he looked upon her face, even for a moment, all would be lost. And then, finally, her moans changed their tenor and her body was clenching involuntarily around him, and Jon couldn’t help himself, thrusting into her a few more times with reckless abandon until he spilled inside her.

Jon felt it only hazily as Daenerys collapsed against him, both of them slick with sweat. She was small enough, light enough that her presence atop him wasn’t a deterrent at all, so he wrapped his arm around her gently, his cock still buried inside her, barely starting to go soft.

 _She’s your aunt_ , he thought to himself, running his hand along the smooth, naked skin of her back. _Your father was her brother_.

Had Jon found out a month earlier, even a fortnight earlier, he might have been able to turn his back on her. He’d _tried_ , but even without the child in her womb, he couldn’t make himself believe he would have lasted much longer in his self-imposed exile from their relationship. It had gone too far. He loved her too much to turn away from her then.

 _She’s your aunt_ , he reminded himself. _Your father was her brother._

And Jon, despite all his good sense, didn’t care.


	8. DAENERYS

The room felt hot, desperately so, in the aftermath of their coupling. Even though they were both fully nude, they remained atop the furs, both their bodies covered in a light sheen of sweat from the exertion of the act. It was something she’d learned to _enjoy_ , with Drogo—the sheer physicality of the act, the way she’d be sore and sometimes bruised and so very satisfied after the fact. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Tyrion that Jon was too _little_ for her—because though she’d been attracted to him nearly from the start, part of her had been worried that he would lack the power and the strength to satisfy her in that way.

She’d learned from the first time that she needn’t be worried about that. He made love with the same fierceness with which he fought with a sword, although there was a softness about him that Drogo and Daario had never had. Drogo had been almost amused when she’d taken control in bed, like she was a curiosity he’d never quite considered possible, and Daario had never minded it, had been desperate enough for her that he’d been willing to take her in any way she was willing to give herself.

With Drogo and Daario both, that had given her a sense of power in her sexuality, which had been intoxicating and invigorating in ways she hadn’t expected, when she’d first sought to learn how to please the Khal. Jon, though—there were times when Jon _reveled_ in the loss of control, which seemed to almost feed into some part of him that would be desperately unfulfilled without it, and that made her feel more powerful than anything ever had. And yet there were still times that he’d pin her down and take her with harsh desperation, as if he felt as though he might die if he couldn’t have her.

There had been desperation in both of them that night, in the uncertainty of what they’d almost let slip between their fingers. Jon’s reaction had struck her as disproportionate at first—but then she’d watched the faces of everyone in the room that morning, seen the same confusion and disgust mirrored on many of their faces, and she’d realized not for the first time how little she _truly_ knew of the customs of this land she was trying to lead, how much what she’d known had always been colored by Viserys’ perceptions. She knew what Jon was coming up against, then, what they all would be, once the truth was in the open—the talk of incest, of Targaryen madness.

It wasn’t illegal, nor was it unprecedented; Tyrion had told her as much just hours before. But there was a certain prejudice, some feeling that this kind of thing was the relic of an older, less refined time, and it was something Daenerys had come to realize acutely that they’d be dealing with. But if Jon could overcome his instinctive urge to recoil, if Tyrion could still find it the best political move for them to marry, then Daenerys had to hope that the rest of Westeros could follow suit.

Daenerys lay her head against Jon’s chest, running her fingers gently along the scar over his heart. Her movements were careful, for part of her was still afraid to touch the scars—both because she could sense Jon’s dislike for them and because they seemed, somehow impossibly, to have never fully healed. They were still red and angry, almost like fresh wounds, something that seemed implausible considering how long ago he’d gotten them. But then, Daenerys knew nothing of the kind of magic that had brought him back; she knew nothing of what that could do to a body.

“We don’t need to tell anyone,” Jon said suddenly, as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation. Daenerys felt off-balance for a moment, fighting to get her feet beneath her once more. She opened her mouth to question him, but he spoke again in a rush, as if afraid that she would interrupt him. “I can remain the bastard of Winterfell, son of Ned Stark, and you will be the rightful Queen. No one needs to know the truth. We don’t need to muddy the waters that way.”

Daenerys blinked at the sudden shift, her body still warm and sated and delightfully _sore_ , and not quite ready to discuss the matters of political intrigue. She turned her head to look at Jon, but his expression was deadly serious, and it was clear that he intended to have that conversation despite all that, his body too tense beneath her for a man who had just found release. She sat up, slowly, pulling one of the furs over her legs as she felt the chill hit her suddenly.

She searched his dark eyes for a long moment, trying to figure out how he actually felt—because for all that Jon Snow was, he was not a man who was good at hiding his feelings. What he thought was reflected exactly onto his face, and it was clear that he meant every word he said. Daenerys didn’t know if she respected him for being willing to give it all up or if she wanted to hit him for it.

“I think they do need to know,” she told him slowly, carefully, watching his face for his reaction to that. He opened his mouth to respond, but Daenerys held up a hand to silence him. He closed his mouth.

“You’re right—I don’t want to give up all I’ve gained, cede all my power to some  _man_  as though I mean nothing for being a woman,” she said—and that was one thing that most rankled her, the way she’d spent so much of her life being treated as property to be bought and sold just because of what happened to be between her legs. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“But we are going to change things—and one thing we can change is that men and women can rule together, as  _equals_. If we marry, it doesn't matter which one of us has the greatest claim. We can rule _together_ ,” she told him with conviction—because she’d thought it through a hundred times, in the week since she’d found out the truth about Jon, and it was the golden ideal, the thing she hadn’t dared hope for, because she hadn’t been certain if Jon would ever come back to her. Hadn’t been certain that she mightn’t have to fight him and Cersei both, when it came down to it.

Jon sat up and looked at her with a sharp air of conviction.

“We can still do that. We can still marry, and rule, and no one needs to know,” he said with such sincerity in his tone that it almost hurt to listen to him, made her heart ache with a gnawing kind of emptiness she couldn’t adequately describe. “There’s no reason that people should believe I’m more fit to rule than you are—not because I’m a man, and not because some father I never met, who died before I was even born.”

Daenerys felt, impossibly, that she loved him even _more_ at that moment—because that was the selflessness in him that had intrigued Daenerys from the start, the selflessness that had compelled him to come to Dragonstone in hopes of securing dragonglass, even knowing that she might take him prisoner or worse. The selflessness that had directed him to lead an expedition north of the Wall himself, rather than send someone else. That he was willing to give up his birthright so _her_ rule wouldn’t be questioned was more than she’d ever expected anyone to sacrifice for her.

Daenerys shook her head.

“If I die, you should be able to claim your birthright,” she told him sincerely. “If I don’t survive the coming wars…there is no one I’d rather see on the Iron Throne than you.”

Daenerys surprised herself in how much she meant it; she’d bristled at the thought of discussing the succession, when Tyrion had tried to breach the topic with her, but the thought that Jon would ascend to the throne instead of her, in the case of her death, brought her a strange sense of comfort. He would be a good ruler, she was certain, a just one.

Jon bit his lip, averting his gaze. When he finally spoke, there was something soft and uncertain about his voice.

“I don’t _want_ the throne,” he confessed slowly, his voice low and uneven. “Not without you.”

Daenerys felt a soft warmth blossoming in her chest at the words—and she moved closer to him again, reaching up to touch his cheek. He flinched away at first, but after a beat he leaned into her touch, the roughness of his beard abrasive yet comforting against her palm.

“You would be a great ruler, Jon,” she assured him then, unsurprised by how much she believed her own words. “The fact that you don't want power for the sake of it is what makes you great.”

The look Jon gave her in response was skeptical, as though he believed her words to be nothing more than well-intentioned platitudes, though that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Jon had made her question everything, reevaluate every step she intended to make—a constant reminder to tether her to all the humanity and goodness she sometimes feared was slipping away from her. He was, in so many ways, exactly what she _wasn’t_ , a perfect complement to her. Daenerys took a deep breath, carefully considering her next words before she spoke.

“From what I’ve heard, that's what made Ned Stark a great leader in the North as well,” she told him in a measured tone. “He taught you well.”

When Jon turned his gaze back to her, Daenerys wasn’t surprised to see his eyes glassy with unshed tears. She couldn’t help but wonder how much it plagued him, the realization that Ned Stark had never been his father at all. He idolized the man—that much was plain. To Jon and to all of Ned Stark’s children, it sometimes seemed that he was more god than man, a perfect paragon of honor and goodness that none of them could ever hope to match.

Jon let his eyes fall closed for a few moments, and when they opened again, any hint of the tears was gone.

“I have a better idea,” Jon said then, his tone light, almost forced. “I propose that neither of us dies.”

Daenerys smiled despite herself, moving her hand to brush through Jon’s unruly curls. It continued to amaze her every day that he could be so hopeful, so _good_ , despite everything that had happened to him. She remembered the feeling in her chest well—it was the same one that she’d had when he’d refused to lie to Cersei about his allegiance to her. It was two parts exasperation, one part pride at having the privilege to know a man so genuinely good at heart. She spared a moment to think of their child, were they both to live—to think of who the child would become, raised by a father with such inalienable morals. She spared a moment to believe that if anyone could create the better world that she had dreamed of, it would be the two of them, _together._

“It’s a good idea,” she told him softly, indulgently. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we need to tell the truth. You must see that, Jon. You hate lies.”

The words weren’t much, but they were an ironclad argument to Jon, and she’d presented it in a way that meant there was no way he would possibly fight her. He may truly have been _Aegon Targaryen_ , but at his heart, he was still Jon Snow, and no matter what anyone chose to call him, Jon Snow was a man who valued truth and justice. Jon sighed and fell back against the furs, resigned.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked her finally, his tone hopeful—because for all Jon was, he was more of a military commander than a politician, just as she had been more of a conqueror than a ruler before she had stopped in Mereen. He often listened to the advice of his sister—his _cousin_ —because she played the political game better than he did, having learned at the knee of Cersei Lannister.

“Not yet,” Daenerys told him honestly—because she had ideas about how she would approach the situation if she were in Mereen, or among the Dothraki, but if her recent experiences had taught her anything, it was that she was woefully unprepared for the political situation in Westeros. “But tomorrow, we will call a meeting of all our advisors, and we will _make_ a plan.”

Daenerys was confident in her advisors—even in Tyrion, despite all the military blunders she’d suffered under his advice. They now had enough advisors between them that Tyrion was _not_ the person to which she’d solely entrust her military decisions—but she trusted his political instincts in Westeros. And she trusted Varys—and even Sansa to be able to come up with a plan about how to handle the situation.

Some of her confidence seemed to rub off on him, because Jon’s uncertain expression turned to a smile, and he pulled her in for a kiss. She complied, and that was the last they talked of politics that night.


	9. ARYA

If Arya had learned nothing else since her return to Winterfell, it was that politics was all dreadfully _boring_. Being reunited with her family—even with _Sansa_ —was something she’d desperately wanted, something she knew her father would have wanted as well. But life on the road had been, for all its downfalls, something so much more _exciting_ —and although at least no one expected her to be a lady since she’d returned home, there had been an awful lot of arguing and sitting around. There had been a fair amount of sparring with Brienne, and with Ser Jorah, and even with Jaime fucking Lannister, who seemed equal parts amused and annoyed that she could keep up with him in a fight. She’d hated, when she was younger, that she was so small, wanting to be someone tall and powerful like Brienne—but she’d learned to accept and even _revel_ in the agility that came with her size, her ability to dodge a broadsword much faster than almost anyone could swing it.

But the brief moments of excitement were interspersed with even more moments of boring talking, and Arya had come to the meeting room with the expectation of more of the same, the morning after the meeting when all the others had learned about who Jon really was. She amused herself at the meetings by observing everyone’s body language, thinking about how she would embody them, if she took their face. She wasn’t _planning_ to kill any of them, of course, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared for all eventualities.

It had been clear from the moment that Jon and Daenerys had arrived that the two had reconciled; even if it hadn’t been for their body language, the two had arrived _together_ , which spoke volumes. Jon and Daenerys sat next to each other, at the head of the table, their bodies angled subtly toward each other. Daenerys, Arya couldn’t help but notice, also sat with a hand resting protectively over her belly. She was afraid for her child, Arya thought, but she wasn’t yet willing to write it off as a lost cause.

Ser Jorah had been easy to read, right from the first time that Arya had met him. He looked at Daenerys often, usually when he likely thought that no one was looking at him, and the devotion that Arya saw in his gaze nearly made her uncomfortable. He was staring at her that morning, too, but there was a hint of sadness in his expression, even more pronounced than usual.

Ser Davos had an easiness about him, too, a kind of straightforward morality and simplicity that reminded her a bit of her own father. She wondered, absently, if that was why Jon had grown to like him so much, to appreciate his level head among all the madness.

Samwell Tarly was interesting. He was fidgety and nervous, always moving around until he had something to say. Whenever he had knowledge to contribute, all his nervousness fell away, and he became confident and self-assured out of nowhere. It was the same way he’d gone from on-edge to suddenly poised when he’d told them about Jon.

In contrast, Daenerys’ advisor Missandei was always poised and totally in control. She was the type of woman Arya would have liked to be, she supposed, if she hadn’t been able to learn how to fight. Missandei fought in a different way, with her tongue rather than a sword, but Arya still couldn’t help but respect her.

And there was something strange about Sansa and Tyrion Lannister, something that Arya couldn’t quite wrap her fingers around. Tyrion made a point to go sit next to Sansa, even when there was an open seat next to Daenerys, his customary place, and Sansa shot him a smile when he sat down. It was still strange for her to think about the fact that the two had been married, after she’d run from King’s Landing; the two seemed so mismatched that the mere prospect seemed nothing short of impossible.

And Varys, the odd eunuch from Essos…Arya was certain that she’d face her greatest challenge wearing _his_ face, because he was the strangest of them all. Bizarre, difficult to fathom—although perhaps not all that difficult to mimic.

Shaking her head to herself, Arya turned her attention away to her observations of all the others in the room and began listening once more to what they were saying. Varys was the one who was speaking.

“The most important thing,” he said to Jon, his tone somewhat like the one Septa Mordane had used back when she’d been trying to instruct Arya on how to sew, “is that you must not admit it.”

Arya blinked and looked back and forth between everyone, trying to recall what they had been discussing. After a moment, she remembered the start of the meeting, when Jon and Daenerys had announced their plans—to let everyone know that Jon was a Targaryen, and for the two of them to marry. Despite the fact that Varys hadn’t been present for the previous day’s meeting, he hadn’t seemed even remotely phased by the proclamation—and more so, he’d seemed to have already had plans prepared.

“I won’t lie to my own people,” Jon said, and Arya turned to look at him, seeing the resolute set of his jaw, an expression that reminded her so much of her father. She’d seen so much of her father in him, since he had returned to Winterfell—and it was difficult to see him every day and remember that he was gone. But seeing Jon now, the living embodiment of her father, was also a comfort; it had made the news that Jon was merely her _cousin_ so much easier to swallow, because she’d never _cared_ who Jon’s parents were. No matter what anyone told her, she’d always think of Jon as her brother—and she would _always_ see Ned Stark as the father of them both.

“There is no need for _lies_ ,” the eunuch corrected him, exhaling the last word like it was somehow offensive to him. “Merely…careful misdirection.”

The look Jon gave him was totally unimpressed.

“Which would be lies,” he remarked flatly.

Varys opened his mouth to speak again, but the words that Arya heard did not come in his voice. She turned her gaze to the source, to Tyrion Lannister.

“Not necessarily,” he replied, and his tone was much more measured than Varys’, designed to placate. “Tell people the fight right now is between the living and the dead, and that as long as we are on the side of the living, we are on the same side. That no one’s parentage or birthright matters until this is all over. That the Iron Throne is meaningless unless the living can triumph. I think you’d agree that those statements are true?”

The strangeness between Tyrion and Sansa struck Arya again in the way that she smiled at him, almost proud. Jon, for his part, appeared somewhat perplexed, and Daenerys remained quiet by his side. Arya could tell that she was not the one who needed to be convinced; she was ready to agree with her advisor’s proposition, without question. Arya wondered if she already understood the eunuch’s aims the way Tyrion seemed to have.

“Yes,” Jon replied finally, warily. “But what does that accomplish?”

Arya looked back across the table, where Varys that was speaking again.

“Making a public announcement right now would not be wise,” he proclaimed in an airy, measured tone. “The best way to make a man believe something is to convince him he’s always suspected. To make him put the pieces together himself.”

Arya stared at the man for a moment, letting his words rest softly in her mind. She thought back to the day, barely a week before, when Bran had called them together and told them the truth about Jon. Thought about the fact that he’d laid everything out for them, letting them put together the pieces rather than just telling them outright from the start. Thought of the moment when she’d first understood, when she’d first realized what Bran had been trying to tell them.

The moment she’d understood it, that she’d realized that Jon wasn’t who her father had always told them he was, she’d thought at once that she’d always known. That she’d always known that something had been different about Jon, something strange about the way her father had treated him.  She hadn’t truly understood what a bastard was—or rather, she hadn’t understood what the _problem_ was, not when they’d been growing up together in Winterfell. She’d heard the people around her, saying the word _bastard_ in hushed tones, seen the way her mother had treated Jon like she’d never wanted him around. She’d understood, in some abstract way, that Jon being her father’s bastard meant that another woman was Jon’s mother, that her father had been with a woman who wasn’t her mother after they’d already been married.

The problem was that Arya had never been able to comprehend that anything her father had done could possibly be _wrong_ , that he could ever make a mistake. He’d seemed infallible, back then, the way she supposed fathers often were in the eyes of their children. She’d always been convinced that her father couldn’t have done anything bad—and it struck her, then, that if she’d continued that line of thinking to its conclusion, she would have realized that her father could have never broken his marriage vows to her mother. But she’d never thought it through that far; she’d scarcely known or cared about the importance of marriage vows, not back when they were all still at Winterfell together.

She wasn’t certain if she’d ever suspected, if she’d ever _really_ had any doubts about who Jon was. But in that moment, when Bran had laid out the pieces for them, she’d been totally _sure_ that she’d noticed the signs. And while Sansa had protested, been overcome by disbelief, Arya hadn’t had a moment of doubt that Bran’s words could be true.

“And how do you plan to do that?” Sansa asked him, although her tone was more intrigued than skeptical, like she wanted to learn from him rather than dismiss him.

“Put a few pieces of speculation into the right ears,” Varys said with a dismissive wave of the hand, although Arya doubted it would be as simple as he made it sound. But the moment he said it, Arya realized that Varys was right. If they walked out into the main hall right then, announced to everyone that Jon Snow was really Aegon Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne, the Northern Lords would roll their eyes and disparage it as nonsense. But if someone reminded them that Ned Stark was an honorable man, a man who always kept his vows—and yet he had broken his vows and sired a bastard? If someone reminded them that no one had ever been sure who Jon’s mother was? Reminded them that Lyanna Stark had been a free-spirited, willful young woman, one who had not been pleased about her betrothal to Robert Baratheon? Reminded them that they’d all _seen_ Jon ride a dragon, even though it was well known that no one without the name Targaryen had been able to do so for hundreds of years? Perhaps they’d be convinced that they’d always questioned Jon’s parentage, that it had never seemed quite _right_.

“And the marriage cannot go forth until the truth is out,” Sansa remarked, then, breaking Arya’s train of thought. “Or there are those who would decry the marriage as illegitimate. That they were married under false pretenses, under a false name.”

Jon bristled visibly at Sansa’s words, and Arya could guess why. No matter who he was, who his mother and father truly were, Arya would never be able to think of him as anything but “Jon.” The idea that that name was somehow a false one rankled her as much as she was sure it did him.

“Should we wait until things are more settled?”

The question came from Ser Davos, but Jon’s response broke in almost immediately, before any of them had time to take the suggestion under consideration.

“No,” Jon said insistently. “We have to do it now, before the battle. If…if I die and we aren’t married, the child will be a bastard. I refuse to let that happen.”

Even Arya, for all that she had been watching, wasn’t quite able to decipher the look Daenerys gave Jon at those words, but it looked strangely like approval. Perhaps she didn’t want to birth a bastard any more than Jon wanted to sire one—or perhaps it was something else.

“It would be wise to wait as long as we are able,” Varys pointed out helpfully, hands clasped together beneath his gaping sleeves. “To give the rumors time to circulate.”

Everyone at the table fell silent at that, remembering the threat looming over them once more, how little time and energy everyone at Winterfell had to spare. After a long pause, Jon turned to Bran, who sat in the corner away from the table, a blanket of furs over his lap, as if trying to hide his crippled legs.

“At the speed the dead are marching now, how long do we have?” he asked, tone dark and resigned.

Bran was the biggest mystery to Arya; no matter how much she watched her brother, she couldn’t fathom who he was anymore, what had happened to him to change him so greatly. His face was impassive as he seemed to consider Jon’s question, a faraway look in his eyes, like he wasn’t even in the room with them.

“We can wait a fortnight, no more,” he said finally, tonelessly—and Arya watched everyone in the room shift in their seats, as if they found Bran’s mere presence unsettling. Nearly everybody reacted to Bran that way now.

“And what of the talk of incest?” asked Ser Jorah, breaking the uncomfortable moment with another one. Arya turned to him, regarding the man up and down, the man that she knew her father had banished from the Seven Kingdoms, back again as though nothing had happened. His eyes reflected both hopelessness and desperation, and Varys looked at the old knight with an almost predatory smile.

“When the people see their new King and Queen ride in side by side on two dragons, having saved us all from an army of corpses that Queen Cersei refused to even fight, they will be celebrating Targaryen incest as a necessity,” the man said airily, and everyone shifted in their seats once more in renewed discomfort.


	10. BRAN

Bran didn’t like the minds of rats. Slipping into Summer’s mind had always been comforting, like visiting a friend, like being welcomed into his father’s arms. Slipping into the minds of birds had always been exciting, freeing in a way that he’d never thought that he’d experience, especially not after he’d heard that he’d never walk again. But the minds of rats felt base and grubby and uncomfortable, like he didn’t quite fit inside them.

They were also, unfortunately, the most convenient way to spy on King’s Landing.

If nothing else could be said about the rats, though, they certainly had good instincts for how to move around the streets of King’s Landing without putting themselves in considerable danger, knew which holes to scurry back into if they happened to catch some unwanted human attention.

That allowed Bran to flit from conversation to conversation, listening in and moving on to the next, as he’d been doing for several days already. It had become clear to Bran very quickly that whatever Varys had done, wherever he’d managed to slip tidbits of information, the capital was awash with gossip about Jon—and about Jon and Daenerys’ impending nuptials. It wouldn’t have been difficult, Bran wagered; the whole thing was a compelling and salacious tale, the kind they’d write songs about someday.

Bran heard the word ‘Targaryen’ and stopped, turning his attention to a group of men outside a tavern.

“There’s no way Ned Stark hid a Targaryen boy from King Robert,” said one man, dark-haired and bearded with a suspicious look on his face. A second man with light, curly hair snorted.

“Queen Cersei hid from him that she fucked her brother,” the man pointed out to his companion, slurring slightly as though drunk, despite the fact that it was still before lunch time. “The cunt hid from him that none of his children were really his. King Robert wouldn’t have known a Targaryen if one rode up on a dragon and commanded it to shit on ‘is head.”

Bran winced internally at the mental image the man’s words created and moved on, considering what he’d overheard, the way it echoed what he’d been hearing all week, both in King’s Landing and in Winterfell. The people, it seemed, had very little love for Cersei Lannister—and they largely saw the late King Robert as a fool. Varys might have been correct about one thing: the common people may have been smarter than most Kings and Queens gave them credit for.

“Did you hear that he can ride a dragon, too?” asked another voice as Bran scurried by in the rat’s body. “The Dragon Queen named it after her brother. Isn’t that so _poetic_? He rides a dragon named for his father!”

“They’re going to get married, I hear,” answered a second voice, female and excitable. “That’s the only way to make sure their children can ride dragons. They can’t taint their bloodline any more with normal folk.”

Bran scampered along, reaching the marketplace, ducking his way between stalls. Another conversation stalled him in his tracks, as he ignored the rat’s instinctive urge to try to steal food while the shopkeepers were occupied.

“Do you think the White Walkers are really coming?” one shopkeeper asked another in hushed tones. “And that Queen Cersei really refused to help? She means to sacrifice everyone to keep the throne.”

The second shopkeeper responded in equally surreptitious tones.

“I bet them dragons can kill White Walkers,” he said conspiratorially. The first man who had spoken glanced around nervously, as if afraid that someone was listening. Someone was, of course, but it was someone neither of them could have spotted.

“How do you know those Targaryens won’t burn us all, too?” the man asked uneasily. “They’re the daughter and grandson of the Mad King.”

“They say Queen Cersei is the one who exploded the sept. Killed thousands of innocents without hesitatin’. I’ll take me chances with them Targaryens and their dragons.”

Bran retreated back into his own body with a gasp, his heart pounding the way it often did following the transition from animal to human…or whatever it was that Bran was anymore. Bran rubbed at his upper arms absently, although it was less from the cold and more from the lingering griminess he felt from the rat’s mind.

“Bran?”

The voice came from Samwell Tarly, standing next to him wearing a thick black cloak. It was rare for Sam to bring Bran out to the godswood, a task usually undertaken by one of Winterfell’s servants, but it was an auspicious day.

“I’m finished,” Bran told Sam with a frown as he watched the servants flitting around them, setting up torches and clearing as much snow as possible. The weirwood tree would be the site of Jon and Daenerys’ wedding in just a few hours’ time.

Sam, not seeming content with Bran’s response, looked at him inquisitively.

“Well?” he pressed when Bran said nothing more.

Sam knew where he’d gone, what his intentions had been, and he clearly wanted news of Varys’ operation in the capital. The news, as Bran saw it, was mixed; the capital was full with gossip about Jon and Daenerys and about the upcoming wedding, but some remained doubtful, and some remained frightened of their fate under a new Targaryen regime.

It wasn’t ideal, not by a long shot—but it was about the best they could hope for in the few weeks they had to prepare, and they had already delayed as long as they could. The dead would be upon them soon—too soon.

“Everything is as expected,” Bran told Sam vaguely, because that much, at least, was true. He’d expected that there would be doubts, but there was nothing more that could be done about it, not before the wedding. Not until after the army of the dead had been defeated, more than likely. “Take me back inside.”

Bran spent the next few hours in the castle, considering their next moves, what information he should share and what information he needed to keep to himself. He’d learned the hard way that he had to be careful with the power he now wielded, and Bran had resolved to do his best to think through the consequences of any information he might share.

Sansa was the one who came to fetch him, when the time came, to wheel him outside for the wedding. She had donned a pretty grey dress embroidered with two dire wolves along the neckline and a full cloak of matching grey. Bran couldn’t help but wonder if her mind went back to the last wedding she’d attended in Winterfell’s godswood—her own. But if the memory plagued her, Sansa did not show it on her face; the eldest Stark daughter was gaining somewhat of a reputation at Winterfell for being an ice queen, and the characterization was not undeserved, Sansa more often than not projecting a calm, cool air of strength.

“Are you ready?” Sansa asked him, looking him over dubiously. Bran hadn’t changed for the wedding; the lower half of his body would remain covered in furs, after all, and Bran had elected not to wear the Stark sigil like his sisters, for he was not Lord of Winterfell.

“It’s time,” Bran told her with a nod.

For all that the wedding had been thrown together in a fortnight’s time, with few resources and even less leisure time at their disposal, it seemed that everyone but Bran had made an effort. The torches were lit, bathing the godswood in a soft orange glow, and the gods had been kind enough not to bring the snows.

All the Northernmen stood in their finest winter clothing, nearly all of them in their house’s colors and wearing their house’s sigils. Alys Karstark stood in black with her white sunburst next to Ned Umber, who wore a red cloak with the Umber chains emblazoned upon it. Lyanna Mormont stood on the opposite side, the black bear stitched onto her white dress, next to the much taller Robett Glover, the silver fist of his house embossed upon his leather tunic. Wyman Manderly’s chest plate portrayed his house’s merman sigil, and he’d traded his usually dour brown tunic for one of aquamarine.

Close to the head of the gathering were Jaime and Tyrion Lannister, both in Lannister crimson and gold for the first time since they’d arrived at Winterfell. Neither had had much cause to be proud of their house as of late, but perhaps Jon and Daenerys had seen the benefit of putting on an appearance of support from their contingent of House Lannister, still one of the most powerful houses in the Seven Kingdoms.

They’d had meetings about the wedding, Bran was certain, although he hadn’t been included. The likes of Varys and Tyrion, Sansa and Davos knew the importance of appearances and the signals this wedding would send to the other noble families of Westeros—and Bran had no doubt that the Master of Whisperers would have news of every detail of the ceremony flung to the far edges of the realm before the week was out, even _with_ the impending battle on the horizon.

King Robert’s bastard son stood in a yellow tunic with a huge stag depicted on the front—and that was a signal too, Bran was sure, a nod that the only survivor of the powerful Baratheon line, which had not so long ago ruled the Seven Kingdoms, supported Jon and Daenerys. Samwell Tarly stood uncomfortably in green with a red huntsman and even Lady Brienne wore her house sigil, another pointed message of the support Jon and Daenerys’ had garnered, even from the Southern houses.

The biggest statement of all, however, came from Jon himself; his gorget had been changed out for a new one, with a Stark dire wolf on one side and a Targaryen three-headed dragon on the other. His hair remained tied back, and he still wore the cloak Sansa had made him, fashioned after their father’s, with the dire wolves embossed on the straps. The message to the Northern men was clear; he was a Targaryen _and_ a Stark, and Ned Stark was still his father in all the ways that counted.

Sansa wheeled Bran up next to Arya, who hadn’t worn a dress but did manage to don a tunic with the Stark sigil as well, one Bran suspected their sister must have made for her. Sansa squeezed Bran’s shoulder and then took a place, not with them, but next to Tyrion Lannister. Bran smiled as he noticed the move; he’d seen his sister growing closer to her former husband during the past weeks, and he found himself wondering if there couldn’t be a successful marriage between the two after all.

Of course, Bran reflected to himself, that meant that Sansa would become Lady Lannister, and it would be up to himself or Arya to continue the Stark name. Bran could not be Lord of Winterfell, but he could perhaps marry a strong woman, one not looking to marry for love, one who would be comfortable and fully capable of ruling without him. All he would have to be able to do was produce an heir, and despite his physical impairment, he was certain he could do it. He had seen his future children, scampering around Winterfell the same way he had when he had been a child, though he still knew little about the glimpses he saw of the future—not enough to know if the future he saw was a guarantee or a mere possibility.

He could ensure the continuation of the Stark name, ensure that the Starks would continue to rule the North—and Bran could fulfill his duties, like the Three-Eyed Raven before him. Lyanna Mormont was, perhaps, a good candidate, if Jorah Mormont could be restored as heir to Bear Island in her stead. Sansa could go to the capital as an advisor to the new King and Queen and wife of Tyrion Lannister. And Lyanna Stark would be born again in Winterfell to become Wardeness of the North.

The thought was comforting in all the chaos, the simplicity of planning for the future. But Bran’s visions of the future were still sparse and difficult to interpret; he still didn’t know which of them would survive, didn’t know if any or all of those plans would come to naught as soon as the fighting came.

Everyone turned with a soft gasp, and Bran followed their gazes. His eyes fell upon Daenerys Targaryen as she entered the godswood. She wore a grey dress elaborately embroidered with the Targaryen sigil, red and black. Leading her toward her new husband was her advisor Ser Jorah; he wore his house’s sigil, too, and Bran saw Lyanna duck her head at him in silent approval as they made their way past her. Daenerys looked stunning, her long platinum locks falling into intricate braids down her back—and Jon’s smile, when he laid eyes on her, seemed to stun the whole of the crowd.

Lord Manderly stepped up to the front, having been selected from among the Northern Lords to lead the ceremony in the traditional Northern style, in the presence of the Old Gods.

“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” he intoned in a booming voice, resonating through the whole of the godswood. Ser Jorah stepped forward.

“Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons. She comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to wed her?”

The words, Bran noticed, had been changed subtly; he doubted that Daenerys had taken kindly to the idea of being ‘claimed.’

Jon stepped forward, exchanging an uncertain look with Daenerys. She nodded her encouragement and he began to speak.

“Aegon, of Houses Stark and Targaryen, Sixth of His Name, the Reborn, Rightful King of the Andals and the First Men, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and King in the North.”

Arya snorted under her breath next to Bran at Jon’s undeniable discomfort at saying the words. It was more than obvious that Daenerys had pushed all the titles, and Jon, who had grown up with the surname _Snow,_ still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of carrying so many. But the effect it had on the assembled crowd was obvious, the murmurs almost a palpable force as everyone shifted uncomfortably at hearing the rumors so starkly confirmed.

“Who gives her?” Jon asked finally, once the crowd had silenced.

“Ser Jorah of House Mormont, who is the Queen’s advisor.”

Lord Manderly looked between them all, and with a nod to himself, intoned, “Queen Daenerys, do you take this man?”

Bran saw Daenerys’ gaze turn to Jon, a huge and almost innocent smile on her face as she regarded him. The dead may have been marching on them, and Cersei Lannister might have been their enemy, and they may have just entered the longest winter in an age—but in that moment, it seemed even to Bran that there could be hope.

“I take this man,” Daenerys replied without hesitation, her hand resting unconsciously over her belly as she said it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who followed me through this journey! For any of you who have enjoyed my writing in general, I'm pleased to announce that I'm working on another story, one that will somewhat informally be a sequel to/inspired by this story and feature some of the same pairings as well as a few that were alluded to in this final chapter. However, the main pairings of the upcoming story will be Tormund/Brienne and Jaime/Brienne. I expect the first chapter to be posted before the end of the month, so keep an eye out for it if you're interested!


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